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->-zS*^ 


THE 


SCOTCH-IRISH 


IN 


AMERICA. 


BY 


SAMUEL   SWETT   GREEN 


THE 


SCOTCH-IKISH 


AMERICA. 


V 
SAMUEL     SWETT     GREEN. 


a  paper  read  as  the  report  of  the  council  of  the  american 

Antiquarian  Society,  at  the  Semi-Annual  Meeting,  April  24, 

1895,  with  Correspondence  called  out  by  the  paper. 


Wovrcatrv,  Pa,$^.,  m.  ^.  ^. 

P Jl E  S  S    OF    CHARLES    HAMILTON 
311    MAIN    STREET. 

1895. 


THE  SCOTCH-IIUSH  IN  AMEEICA.' 


A  TRIBUTE  is  due  from  the  Puritan  to  the  Scotch-Irishmcan,^ 
and  it  is  becoming  in  this  Society,  which  has  its  headquar- 
ters in  the  heart  of  New  England,  to  render  that  tribute. 

The  story  of  the  Scotsmen  who  swaruied  across  the  nar- 
row body  of  water  which  separates  Scotland  from  Ireland,  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  who  came  to  America  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  in  large  numbers,  is  of  perennial  inter- 
est. For  hundreds  of  years  before  the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth  century  the  Scot  had  been  going  forth  contin- 
ually over  Europe  in  search  of  adventure  and  gain.  As  a 
rule,  says  one  who  knows  him  well,  "he  turned,  his  steps 
where  fighting  was  to  be  had,  and  the  pay  for  killing 
was  reasonably  good."  ^  The  English  wars  had  made  his 
countrymen  poor,  but  they  had  also  made  them  a  nation  of 
soldiers. 

Remember  the  "Scotch  Archers"  and  the  "Scotch 
Guardsmen"  of  France,  and  the  delightful  story  of  Quentin 
Durward,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott.  Call  to  mind  the  "Scots 
Brigade,"  which  dealt  such  hard  blows  in  the  contest  in 
Holland  with  the  splendid  Spanish  infantry  which  Parma 
and  Spinola  led,  and  recall  the  pikemen  of  the  great 
Gustavus.     The  Scots  were  in   the  vanguard  of  many  a 


'  For  acknowledgments  regarding  llie  sources  of  information  contained  in 
this  paper,  not  made  in  footnotes,  read  the  Bibliographical  note  at  its  end. 

"  The  Scotch-Irisli,  as  1  understand  the  meaning  of  the  term,  are  Scotchmen 
who  emigrated  to  Ireland  and  such  descendants  of  these  emigrants  as  had  not 
through  intermarriage  with  the  Irish  proper,  or  others,  lost  their  Scotch  char- 
acteristics. Both  emigrants  and  their  descendants,  If  they  remained  long  iu 
Ireland,  experienced  certain  changes,  apart  from  those  which  an;  brought 
about  by  mixture  of  blood,  through  the  iutlueuce  of  new  surroundings. 

3  Harrison,  John.    The  Scot  in  Ulster,  p.  I. 


European  host.  Their  activity  showed  itself  in  trade  also. 
"In  the  Hanse  towns  and  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Mediter- 
ranean every  busy  centre  and  trading  town  knows  the  canny 
Scot.-'i 

The  adventurous  spirit  of  the  Scotsman  had  hitherto 
shown  itself  in  war  and  in  trade ;  it  is  now  to  show  itself  in 
colonization.  Our  interest  to-day  is  in  the  colonies  which 
Scotchmen  established  in  the  north  of  Ireland  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  in  the  great  emigration  from  those  colo- 
nies to  America  in  the  eighteenth  century.  Large  tracts  of 
land  in  Ulster  had  been  laid  waste,  and  James  the  First  of 
England  formed  plans  for  peopling  them  with  colonies  of 
Englishmen  and  Scotchmen.  Hugh  Montgomery,  the  laird 
of  Braidstane,  afterwards  Lord  Montgomery  of  the  Ards, 
and  James  Hamilton,  afterwards  Viscount  Clandeboye  (a 
title  now  borne  by  his  descendant,  the  Marquis  of  Duficrin 
and  Ava,  formerly  Governor-General  of  Canada  and  Vice- 
roy of  India,  who  as  an  Irish  baron  is  Lord  DufFerin  and 
Clandeboye),  led  colonies  into  the  northern  portion  of 
County  Down  in  1606.  About  the  same  time  plantations, 
which  afterwards  became  peculiarly  Scottish,  were  made 
in  Antrim.  Then  followed  what  is  known  as  the  "Great 
plantation,"  in  1610.  Bead  Scott's  Fortunes  of  Nigel,  it  has 
been  said,  and  "  you  see  the  poverty  of  the  old  land  north 
of  the  Tweed,  and  the  neediness  of  the  flock  of  supplicants 
who  followed  James  to  London."  That  neediness  and  the 
poverty  of  their  land  led  Scotsmen  to  Ireland,  also. 

"The  plantations  in  County  Down  and  County  Antrim, 
thorough  as  they  were  as  far  as  they  went,  were  limited  in 
scope,  in  comparison  with  the  '  Great  plantation  in  Ulster' 
for  which  James  I.'s  reign  will  be  forever  remembered  in 
Ireland."- 

Early  in  the  seventeenth  century  "  all  northern  Ireland, 


ij.  S.  Maclutosh  in  The   Making  of   the   Ulsterman,  Second   Scotch-Irish 
Congress,  p.  89. 
2Harrisou,p.  34. 


■ — Londonderry,  Donegal,  Tyrone,  Cavan,  Armagh,  and 
Fermanagh, — passed  at  one  fell  swoop  into  the  hands  of  the 
crown."  1  These  lands  James  proceeded  to  people  with  Eng- 
lishmen and  Scotchmen,  as  he  had  before  planted  Scottish 
and  English  colonies  in  Down  and  Antrim.  Sir  William 
Petty  states,  "that  a  very  large  emigration  had  taken  place 
from  Scotland  after  Cromwell  settled  the  country  in  1652."^ 
"He  takes  the  total  population"  of  Ireland  in  1672  "at 
1,100,000,  and  calculates  that  800,000  were  Irish,  200,000 
English,  and  100,000  Scots.  Of  course  the  English  were 
scattered  all  over  Ireland,  the  Scots  concentrated  in 
Ulster."^  Lecky  says  that  "for  some  years  after  the 
Revolution,"  meaning,  of  course,  the  English  Revolution 
of  1688,  "a  steady  stream  of  Scotch  Presbyterians  had 
poured  into  the  country,  attracted  by  the  cheapness  of 
the  farms  and  by  the  new  openings  for  trade."  "^  The  end 
of  the  seventeenth  century  probably  saw  the  last  of  the 
large  emigration  of  Scots  into  Ulster, 

The  quiet  of  the  Scotch  immigrants  was  disturbed  by 
various  events  durins:  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies.  War  disturbed  their  quiet.  The  Irish  rebellion  of 
1641  caused  them  much  suffering.  It  "  dragged  its  slow 
length  along"  for  years,  and  "until  Cromwell  crossed  in 
1650,  and  in  one  dreadful  campaign  established  the  rule  of 
the  English  Parliament."''  The  Revolution  of  1688  was 
long  and  bloody,  in  Ireland.  The  sufferings  of  the  Prot- 
estants in  the  north  of  Ireland  who  supported  William 
the  Third  and  opposed  James  the  Second  are  well  known. 


1  Harrison,  p.  36. 
^  Ibid.,  p.  84. 

3  Ibid.,  pp.  83  and  84.  See,  too.  Petty,  Sir  William.  Political  Survcj'  of  Ire- 
land in  1G72,  pp.  9,  18,  20  (as  quoted  by  Harrison). 

4  Lecky,  W.  E.  H.  Hist,  of  England  in  the  18th  Century,  Vol.  11.,  p.  400. 
Amer.  ed.,  p.  430.  "  In  1715  Archbishop  Syuge"  (Synge's  Letters,  British  Mu- 
seum Add.  MSS.,  6,  117,  p.  50)  "  estimated  at  not  less  than  50,000  the  number 
of  Scotch  families  who  had  settled  in  Ulster  since  the  Revolution."— Lecky, 
p.  401.     Am.  ed.,  p.  43G. 

6 Harrison,  p.  79. 


6 

and  Macaulay  has  rendered  immortal  the  brave  deeds  of 
the  defenders  of  Londonderry.^ 

The  Scotch  immigrants  suffered  from  repression  of  trade 
and  commerce.  True,  William  III.  encouraged  the  manu- 
facture of  linen  and  induced  colonies  of  Huguenots  who 
were  driven  out  of  France  by  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict 
of  Nantes  to  settle  in  northeast  Ireland.  "  The  first  blow 
struck"  in  the  repression  of  industries,  "  was  an  Act  which 
forbade  the  exportation  of  cattle  from  Ireland  to  England  ;^ 
the  second,  when  by  the  fifteenth  of  Charles  II.,  Ireland, 
which  up  to  this  time  in  commercial  matters  had  been 
held  as  part  of  England,  was  brought  under  the  Navigation 
Acts,  and  her  ships  treated  as  if  belonging  to  foreigners."^ 

It  was  in  the  reign  of  William  III.  that  the  woollen  manu- 
facture in  Ireland  was  suppressed  in  the  interest  of  the 
English  manufacturer,  and  legislation  which  brought  about 
this  suppression  was  followed  by  "Acts  forbidding  the 
Irish  to  export  their  wool  to  any  country  save  England — 
the  English  manufacturers  desiring  to  get  the  wool  of  the 
sister  kingdom  at  their  own  price.""* 

The  Scotch  immigrants  in  Ireland  were  mostly  Presby- 
terians. Under  the  mild  ecclesiastical  rule  of  Archbishop 
Usher  they  prospered.  Later  they  were  persecuted,  and  in 
1704  the  obnoxious  Test  Act  was  imposed  by  Queen  Anne. 

Throughout  their  stay  in  Ireland  the  Scotch  immigrants, 
while  thoy  have  intermarried  with  the  Huguenots  and  Puri- 
tan English  to  a  certain  extent,  have  not  intermarried  with 
the  Celtic  Irish  and  have  preserved  their  Scotch  character- 
istics.^ 


iMiicauliiy's  History  of  England,  Chap.  XII. 

2  Lclaud's  History  of  Ireland,  Vol.  III.,  p.  MS. 

3  Harrison,  p.  85.  See,  also,  Macpherson's  History  of  Commerce,  Vol.  III., 
p.  621,  referred  to  by  Harrison. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  88.    Lecky,  v.  2,  pp.  210  and  211.    Am.  ed.,  pp.  229  and  230. 

5"  Most  of  the  great  evils  of  Irish  politics  during  the  last  two  centuries  have 
arisen  from  the  fact  that  its  different  classes  and  creeds  have  never  been  really 
blended  into  one  nation,  that  the  repulsion  of  race  or  of  religion  has  been 
stronger  than  the  attraction  of  u  common  nationality,  and  that  the  full  energies 


It  is  easy  to  see,  after  the  recital  of  facts  just  given,  why 
the  Scotch  settlers  in  Ulster  became  discontented,  and  large 
numbers  of  them  emigrated  to  America  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  In  addition  to  their  sufferings  from  the  repression 
of  trade  and  commerce  and  from  religious  disabilities,  agri- 
culture was  in  a  miserable  condition,  and  at  times  when 
land  leases  expired,  the  settlers  could  only  renew  them  by 
paying  a  largely  increased  rent.^  The  emigration  to  Amer- 
ica was  very  striking.  Some  of  the  Scottish  settlers  went 
before  1700,  and  very  early  in  the  eighteenth  century,  but 
the  great  bulk  of  the  emigrants  came  to  this  country  at  two 
distinct  periods  of  time  :  the  first,  from  1718  to  the  middle 
of  the  century;  the  second,  from  1771  to  1773;  although 
there  was  a  gentle  current  westward  between  these  two 
eras.  In  consequence  of  the  famine  of  1740  and  1741,  it 
is  stated  that  for  "several  years  afterwards,  12,000  emi- 
grants annually  left  Ulster  for  the  American  plantations  "  ; 
while  from  1771  to  1773,  "the  whole  emigration  froui 
Ulster  is  estimated  at  30,000,  of  whom  10,000  are  weavers."^ 

August  4,  1718,  there  arrived  in  Boston  five  small  ships 


and  intellect  of  the  country  have  in  consequence  seldom  or  never  been  enlisted  in 
a  common  cause." — Lecky ,  Vol.  II.,  p.  405.  Am.  ed.,  pp.  440  and  441.  Travellers 
tell  us  that  to-day  in  sections  of  Ulster  the  population  is  Scotch  and  not  Irish. 
Honorable  Leonard  A.  Morrison  of  Canobic  Lake,  N.  H.,  writes  me,  May  8, 
1895,  as  follows  :  "  I  am  one  of  Scotch-Irish  blood  and  my  ancestor  came  with 
Rev.  McGregor  of  Londonderry"  (N.  H.),  "  and  neither  they  nor  any  of  their 
descendants  were  willing  to  be  called  '  merely  Irish.'  I  have  twice  visited  the 
parish  of  Aghadowey,  Co.  Londonderry,  from  whicli  they  came,  in  Ireland,  and 
all  that  locality  is  filled,  not  with  '  Irish  '  but  with  Scotch-Irish,  and  this  is  pure 
Scotch  blood  to-day,  after  more  than  200  years."  Mr.  Morrison  is  the  author 
of  a  history  of  the  Scotch-Irish  town  of  Windham.  N.  H.,  aud  of  several  other 
valuable  aud  interesting  books,  most  of  them  largely  genealogical. 

1 "  At  the  time  of  the  Kevolution,  when  great  portions  of  the  country  lay 
waste  and  when  the  whole  framework  of  society  was  shattered,  much  Irish 
land  had  been  let  on  lease  at  very  low  rents  to  English,  aud  especially  to  Scotch 
Protestants.  About  1717  and  1718  these  leases  began  to  fall  in.  Rents  were 
usually  doubled,  and  often  trebled  .  .  .  For  nearly  three-quarters  of  a  century 
the  drain  of  this  energetic  Protestant  population  continued."— Lecky,  Vol.  2, 
p.  260.    Amer.  ed.,  pp.  283,  284. 

2  Harrison,  pp.  90,  91.  Reid,  James.  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in 
Ireland,  Ch.  XXVI.  Lecky,  v.  2,  p.  261.  Am.  ed.,  pp.  2S4  and  285.  (Lecky 
refers  to  Killen's  Ecclesiastical  History,  IL,  261,  262.) 


containing  probably  about  seven  hundred  and  fifty  emigrants 
from  the  north  of  Ireland.^  These  were  nearly  all  Scotch- 
Irish.  Their  arrival  was  not  unexpected,  for,  before  coming, 
they  had  sent  over  a  messenger  to  Governor  Shute  and  been 
encouraged  to  come.  A  portion  of  the  emigrants  had  re- 
solved to  unite  in  forming  a  settlement,  and  to  place  them- 
selves under  the  pastoral  care  of  Rev.  James  MacGregor, 
a  Presbyterian  minister  who  came  over  with  them.  Six- 
teen or  twenty  families  from  among  these,  embarked  in  a 
brigantine  and  sailed  east  in  search  of  a  suitable  site  for  a 
town,  the  remainder  going  for  the  present  to  Andover  and 
Dracut.  The  party  in  the  brigantine  explored  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  coast  of  Maine  and,  as  cold  weather  came  on, 
concluded  to  winter  in  Casco  Bay  at  Falmouth,  now  Port- 
land. They  had  a  hard  winter  there  and  when  spring  came 
determined,  with  some  exceptions,  to  seek  a  place  of  settle- 
ment with  a  milder  and  otherwise  more  agreeable  climate. 
They  sailed  west,  entered  the  Merrimack  River  and  came 
to  Haveihill.  Here  they  heard  of  the  town  of  Nutfield, 
now  Londonderry,  New  Hampshire.  Having  examined  the 
place,  they  determined  to  settle  there.  Here  they  were 
joined  by  the  members  of  their  party  who  had  gone  tempo- 
rarily into  the  country,  including  Rev.  Mr.  MacGregor,  and 
laid  the  foundations  of  a  prosperous  town.  Londonderry 
grew  rapidly,  Scotch-Irishmen  already  in  this  country  flock- 
ing to  it,  and  emigrants  of  that  race  coming  from  the  north 
of  Ireland  to  New  England  generally  choosing  it  as  their 
place  of  settlement. 

Another  portion  of  the  emigrants  who  came  to  Boston  in 
1718  went  to  Worcester,  Massachusetts,  to  live.  Professor 
Arthur  L.  Perry,  of  Williamstown,  whose  father  was  born 
in  Worcester  and  whose  family  is  one  of  the  old  families  of 
the  place,  himself  a  descendant  of  one  of  the  Scotch-Irish 
settlers  in  Worcester  and  an  interested  student  of  the  quali- 


1  Perry,  Arthur  L.     The  Scotch-Irish  in  New  England.     In  Scotch-Irish 
in  America,  Second  Congress,  p.  109. 


9 

ties  and  career  of  that  portion  of  the  early  inhabitants  of 
the  town,  estimates  that  more  than  200  Scotch-Irish  people  ' 
went  to  Worcester  in  1718;  they  probably  outnumbering 
the  population  already  there,  who  are  represented  as  occu- 
pying fifty-eight  log  houses.  ~ 

At  the  time  when  these  inhabitants  went  to  Worcester, 
the  people  of  that  place  were  making  a  third  attempt 
at  settlement,  they  having  been  dispersed  twice  before 
by  the  Indians ;  and  the  town  was  not  organized  until 
September,  1722.  It  appears  by  the  town  records  that  some 
of  the  officers  chosen  in  the  earliest  town  meetings  were 
Scotch-Irishmen.  That  element  of  the  population  was  not 
popular,  however,  and  although  the  government  of  the 
Province  was  srlad  to  have  this  addition  to  the  number  of 
the  inhabitants  of  a  frontier  town  exposed  to  the  depreda- 
tions of  Indians,  and  although  the  older  occupants  of  the 
place  may  have  looked  with  favor  at  first  upon  the  coming 
of  the  Scotch-Irish,  the  newcomers  soon  came  to  be  disliked 
and  were  treated  with  marked  inhospitality.  They  Were  of  a 
different  race  ;  there  was  an  especial  prejudice  against  the 
Irish  which  worked  to  their  disadvantage,  although  they 
were  in  reality,  most  of  them,  Scotchmen,  who  had  merely 
lived  in  Ireland.  The  habits  of  the  foreigners  were  difierent 
from  those  of  the  older  inhabitants.  They  differed  also  in  the 
form  of  their  religion,  and  although  staunch  Protestants  the 
Congregationalists,  who  made  up  the  earlier  settiers,  were 
not  ready  to  tolerate  the  Presbyterianism  of  the  newcomers. 

The  Scotch-Irish  were  treated  so  inhospitably  in  Worces- 
ter that,  while  a  considerable  number  of  them  remained 
there,  the  larger  portion  went  away,  some  to  Coleraine,  many 
to  Pelham  ;^  and,  after  the  destruction  of  the  church  they 
were   building,  many  others  to  Western  (now  Warren), 

1  Scotch-Irish  in  America,  Second  Congress,  p.  Ill,  comp.  with  p.  110. 

2  Lincoln's  History  of  Worcester,  p.  40  (which  gives  the  Projjrietary  Records 
as  its  authority). 

3  See,  particularly  for  Telham,  Holland.  J.  G.    History  of  Western  Massa- 
chusetts. 


10 

Blandford  and  other  towns  where  they  could  live  more  com- 
fortably and  enjoy  a  larger  liberty.  They  introduced  the 
potato,  so  generally  known  in  this  vicinity  as  the  Irish 
potato,  into  Worcester  ^  as  well  as  into  Andover,  Massachu- 
setts, and  other  towns  and  parts  of  the  country  where  they 
settled.  They  are  said  to  have  made  spinning  fashionable 
in  Boston. 

Dr.  Matthew  Thornton,  the  distinguished  New  Hamp- 
shire statesman,  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  was  brought  to  this  country  by  his  father 
when  only  two  or  three  years  old.  He  received  an  "  aca- 
demical "  ^  education  in  Worcester  and  after  studying  medi- 
cine settled  down  in  Londonderry,  New  Hampshire,  to 
practise  his  profession.^  At  the  second  annual  town  meet- 
ing in  Worcester,  held  in  March,  1724,  James  McClellan, 
the  great-great-great  Scotch-Irish  grandfather  of  General 
George  B.  McClellan,  was  chosen  a  constable.  Honorable 
George  T.  Bigelow,  a  former  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Judicial  Court  of  Massachusetts,  through  his  grandmother, 
the  wife  of  Colonel  Timothy  Bigelow,  a  revolutionary  soldier 
of  local  reputation,  was  descended  from  one  of  the  members 
of  the  Scotch-Irish  colony  in  Worcester.  Professor  Perry 
has  also  announced  the  discovery  that  the  great  botanist 

1  According  to  tradition,  the  potato  was  introduced  into  Worcester  by  one 
of  a  few  families  of  Celtic-Irish  who  accompanied  the  Scotch-Irish  when  they 
went  to  Worcester.  Although  the  potato  is  indigenous  in  the  southern  portion 
of  America  and  was  carried  from  this  continent  to  Europe  in  the  16th  century, 
little  or  nothing  seems  to  have  been  known  about  it  in  New  England  when  the 
band  of  Scotch-Irish  came  to  Boston  in  ITIS.  Some  interesting  stories  are  told 
by  Lincoln  in  his  History  of  Worcester  (p.  49),  and  by  Parker  in  his  History  of 
Londonderry,  N.  H.  (p.  49),  about  the  fears  of  early  settlers  of  Worcester 
Massachusetts,  that  the  potato  was  poisonous;  and  about  ignorance  of  the 
character  oft  he  vegetable,  shown  by  settlers  in  Andover  in  their  cooking  the 
balls  of  the  plant  instead  of  the  tubers.  See,  also,  Lewis's  History  of  Lynn, 
Massachusetts,  "Annals,"  year  1718.  The  potato  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
generally  used  in  Ireland  until  many  years  after  1718.  Naturally  the  common 
potato,  having  been  introduced  by  emigrants  from  Ireland,  came  to  be  quite 
generally  denominated  the  Irish  potato,  to  distinguish  it  from  the  sweet  potato. 
That  name  is  used  to  a  considerable  extent  to-day. 

2  Parker's  History  of  Londonderry,  p.  248. 
3I6jcZ.,pp.  247,  248. 


11 

Asa  Gray  was  a  great-great-grandson  of  the  first  Scotch- 
Irish  Matthew  Gray  of  Worcester. 

There  are  in  Worcester  to-day  two  old  houses  which  arc 
believed  to  have  been  built  and  occupied  by  the  early 
Scotch-Irish  residents,  Andrew  McFarland  and  Robert 
Blair. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  Abraham  Blair  and  William 
Caldwell,  of  Worcester,  and  several  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Londonderry,  N.  H.,  as  survivors  of  the  brave  men  Avho 
defended  Londonderry,  Ireland,  in  1(589,  were,  with  their 
heirs,  freed  from  taxation,  by  Act  of  Parliament,  in  British 
Provinces,  and  occupied  what  were  here  known  until  the 
Revolution  as  "  exempt  farms." 

As  has  been  related,  a  few  of  the  Scotch-Irish  emigrants 
who  came  to  Boston  in  the  vessels  which  arrived  August  4, 
1718,  settled  in  Maine,  a  large  portion  went  to  London- 
derry, N.  H.,  and  two  hundred  or  so  to  Worcester.  A  con- 
siderable number,  however,  remained  in  Boston,  and,  uniting 
with  those  of  their  countrymen  of  their  own  faith  already 
there,  formed  the  religious  society  which  was  known  as  the 
Presbyterian  Church  in  Long  Lane — afterwards  Federal 
Street.  That  Church  became  Congregational  in  178(5,  and, 
on  April  4,  1787,  Dr.  Jeremy  Belknap,  the  founder  and 
one  of  its  officers  until  his  death,  of  the  Massachusetts  His- 
torical Society,  was  installed  as  its  pastor.  This  is  the 
same  society  which  later  had  William  Ellery  Channing  for 
its  minister,  and  the  successor  to  which  is  the  Unitarian 
body  which  worships  in  the  stone  New  England  meeting- 
house on  Arlington  Street. 

In  1719  and  1720  several  hundred  families  of  Scotch- 
Irish  from  the  north  of  Ireland  were  landed  on  the  shores 
of  the  Kennebec  River  in  Maine  in  accordance  with  arrange- 
ments  made  by  an  Irish  gentleman,  Robert  Temple.^     They 


1  Honorable  Edward  L.  Pierce  calls  my  attention  to  Winsor's  Memorial  His- 
tory of  Boston,  Vol.  2,  p.  540,  where  it  is  stated  that  our  "  Captain  Kobert 
Temple  came  over  in  1717  with  a  number  of  Scotch-Irish  emigrants." 


12 

were  soon  dispersed  by  Indians  and  a  large  portion  of  the 
settlers  went  to  Pennsylvania,  and  considerable  numbers  to 
Londonderry  and  other  places.  Some  remained  in  Maine, 
however.  This  immigration  is  of  particular  interest  to 
members  of  this  Society,  for  its  conductor,  Robert  Temple, 
was  the  ancestor  of  our  second  president,  Thomas  Lindall 
Winthrop,  and  his  son,  Robert  Charles  Winthrop,  who  has 
for  so  long  a  time  taken  a  marked  interest  in  our  proceed- 
insfs  and  whose  loss  is  fresh  in  our  memories  to-day. 
r]  I  n  f  From  lp29  to  1632  Colonel  Dunbar  was  governor  of 
Sagadahoc,  a  tract  of  land  lying  between  the  Kennebec  and 
St.  Croix  rivers.  He  was  a  Scotch-Irishman,  and  made 
some  of  his  countrymen  large  owners  of  land  in  the  terri- 
tory under  him.  They  in  turn  introduced,  in  the  course  of 
two  or  three  years,  one  hundred  and  JBfty  families  into  the 
territory.  These  were  mostly  Scotch-Irish,  and  came  partly 
from  older  settlements  in  Massachusetts  and  New  Hamp- 
shire and  partly  from  Ireland.  Numerous  descendants  of 
the  settlers  are  to  be  found  to-day  in  the  territory  which 
Dunbar  governed,  and  others'  are  scattered  over  the  whole 
State  of  Maine. 

Samuel  Waldo,  a  member  of  a  family  well  known  in 
Boston  and  Worcester,  was  probably  the  last  person  to 
introduce  a  colony  of  the  Scotch-Irish  people  into  Maine 
prior  to  the  Revolution.  He  owned  large  tracts  of  land 
between  the  Penobscot  and  St.  George  rivers.  His  first 
settlers,  who  went  upon  his  lands  in  1735,  were  Scotch- 
Irish,  some  recent  immigrants,  some  who  had  been  in  the 
country  since  1718.  Their  posterity  are  excellent  citizens. 
Some  of  the  persons  wrecked  in  the  "  Grand  Design  "  from 
the  north  of  Ireland,  on  Mt.  Desert,  settled  on  Waldo's 
lands.  In  1753,  Samuel  Waldo  formed  in  Scotland  a  com- 
pany of  sixty  adults  and  a  number  of  children  to  settle  on 
his  possessions. 

Our  lamented  Scotch-Irish  associate.  Governor  Charles 
H.  Bell,  of  Exeter,  N.  H.,  in  the  address  which  he  made 


13 

at  the  150th  anniversary  of  the  settlement  of  old  Nutfield 
(Londonderry),  June  10,  18G9,  calls  attention  to  the  fact  of 
"the  prodigious  increase  in  numbers  which  the  descendants 
of  the  early  Londonderry  stock  have  attained,  in  the  four  or 
five  generations  which  have  passed  away  since  the  colony,  of 
such  slender  proportions,  was  formed."  "  It  is  estimated," 
he  said,  "  by  persons  best  qualified  to  pronounce  upon  the 
subject,  that  the  aggregate,  in  every  section,  would  now 
fall'little  short  of  5V',000  souls."' 

Certain  it  is  that  a  large  portion  of  the  inhabitants  of 
New  Hampshire  and  Maine,  and  a  considerable  portion  of 
those  in  Massachusetts,  as  well  as  many  persons  in  Ver- 
mont, Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut  have  had  Scotch-Irish 
ancestors.  When  this  people  has  settled  in  some  part  of 
our  country  it  has  sent  out  colonies.  Parker,  the  historian 
of  Londonderry,  says  that  "during  the  period  of  twenty- 
five  years  preceding  the  Revolution,  ten  distinct  settlements 
were  made  by  emigrants  from  Londonderry,  all  of  which 
have  become  towns  of  influence  and  importance  in  the 
Statc."2 

In  the  first  third  of  the  seventeenth  century  Sir  William 
Alexander,  a  favorite  of  James  the  First,  tried  to  found  a 
new  Scotland  in  America.  The  only  existing  memorial  of 
that  attempt  is  the  name  of  Nova  Scotia.^  A  more  success- 
ful effort  was  made  after  the  forced  evacuation  of  the 
French  from  that  province  in  1755.  About  the  year  1760, 
a  party  of  Scotch-Irishmen,  many  of  them  from  London- 
derry, N.  H.,  started  a  permanent  settlement  at  Truro. 
Among  the  settlers  from  Londonderry  were  several  Archi- 
balds, members  of  a  family  which  has  held  a  distinguished 
place  in  the  public  life  of  Nova  Scotia.'*     Among  the  pio- 


1  The  Loudondtiiry  Celebration,  p.  IG. 

-  Parker,  Edward  L.    The  History  of  Londonderry,  p.  99. 

s  For  an  account  of  the  work  done  in  America  under  the  auspices  of  Sir 
William  Alexander,  see  Proceedings  and  Transactions  of  the  lloyal  Society  of 
Canada,  for  the  year  1892,  Vol.  X.,  Section  2,  pp.  79-107. 

*  Parker's  Londonderry,  p.  200. 


14 

neers  was  Captain  William  Blair  also,  a  son  of  Colonel 
Robert  Blair,  of  Worcester,  Massachusetts,  and  grandson  of 
Colonel  Robert  Blair,  one  of  the  defenders  of  Londonderry, 
Ireland.^  Other  Scotch-Irish  settlers  followed,  and  their 
descendants  became  numerous,  and  peopled  neighboring 
towns. 

October  9,  1761,  Colonel  Alexander  McNutt,  an  agent  of 
the  British  government,  arrived  in  Halifax  with  more  than 
300  settlers  from  the  north  of  Ireland.  In  the  followins: 
spring  some  of  these  went  to  Londonderry,  Onslow,  and 
Truro. ^  September  15,  1773,  the  "Hector,"  the  first  emi- 
grant ship  from  Scotland  to  come  to  Nova  Scotia,  arrived  in 
the  harbor  of  Pictou.  The  pioneers  who  came  in  that  vessel 
formed  the  beginning  of  a  stream  of  emigrants  from  Scot- 
land which  flowed  over  the  county  of  Pictou,  the  eastern  por- 
tions of  the  province,  Cape  Breton,  Prince  Edward  Island, 
portions  of  New  Brunswick  and  even  the  upper  provinces.^ 
A  large  portion  of  these  emigrants,  however,  came  from 
the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  and,  although  they  formed  a 
valuable  part  of  the  population  of  Nova  Scotia  and  other 
provinces,  were  of  a  somewhat  different  blood  from  the 
Lowland  Scotch  and  their  matured  countrymen,  the 
Scotch-Irish. 

A  very  considerable  portion  of  the  people  of  Canada  are 
of  the  Scotch-Irish  race.  There  are  in  ever}'  province,  it 
is  said,  centres  almost  entirely  settled  by  people  of  that 
extraction.  That  is  the  case  with  Colchester  County  in 
Nova  Scotia,  in  which  Truro,  of  which  I  have  spoken,  is 
situated.  It  is  so  with  Simcoe  County  in  Ontario.  Rev. 
Stuart  Acheson,  who  was  a  settled  pastor  in  the  last  named 
county  for  ten  years,  states  that  in  his  "First  Essa  Church"'* 
all  the  families  but  one  were  Scotch-Irish.    New  Brunswick 


1  Miller,  Thomas.    Historical  aud  Genealogical  Record  of  the  first  settlers  of 
Colchester  County,  etc.,  p.  1G7. 

2  Miller,  p.  15. 

3  Patterson,  George.    History  of  the  County  of  Tictou,  Nova  Scotia,  p.  82. 
*3d  Scotch-Irish  Cong.,  p.  210. 


15 

has  her  share  of  this  race.  It  should  be  added,  that  the 
Counties  in  the  Dominion  of  Canada  in  which  this  people 
have  lived  have  been  leaders  in  civilization. 

There  is  an  incident  in  Canadian  history  in  which  two 
distinguished  Scotch-Irishmen  figured  conspicuously.  Sir 
Guy  Carleton,  whom  we  remember  in  the  United  States  as 
the  Commander-in-Chief  of  tlae  British  Army  at  the  close 
of  the  Revolution,  was  appointed  Lieutenant-Governor  of 
Quebec  in  1767,  and  while  holding  that  office  earned  for 
himself  the  title  of  Saviour  of  Canada.  He  was  born  at 
Strabane,  in  the  County  of  Tyrone,  in  Ireland.  Eichard 
Montgomery,. his  companion  in  arms  at  the  siege  of  Quebec 
when  it  was  taken  by  Wolfe,  was  born  not  more  than  seven 
miles  away,  at  Conroy.^     These  two  Scotch-Irishmen,  fel- 


iThis  statement  and  several  particulars  of  the  incidents  in  the  lives  of 
Carleton  and  Montgomery  given  immediately  after  were  taken  from  a  paper 
entitled  The  Scotch-Irish  in  Canada,  by  Rev.  Stuart  Aeheson,  M.A.,  of 
Toronto,  in  The  Scotch-Irish  in  America,  Third  Cong.,  pp.  195-212.  John 
Armstrong,  the  writer  of  the  life  of  Richard  Montgomery  in  The  Library  of 
American  Biography,  conducted  by  Jared  Sparks,  states  that  Richard  and  his 
two  brothers  were  sons  of  Thomas  Montgomery  of  Conroy  House.  The 
father  does  not  seem  to  have  owned  that  place,  however;  it  came  to  his  son 
Alexander  from  his  cousin.  (See  Burke's  Landed  Gentry  [ISSG],  Vol.  II., 
p.  12SS.)  The  late  Mr.  Henry  Manners  Chichester  states  in  the  article 
"  Montgomery,  Richard,"  in  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  that  the  latter 
was  born  at  Swords,  near  Felti-im,  Co.  Dublin.  One  cannot  help  wonder- 
ing whether  Mr.  Aeheson,  if  he  has  not  merely  followed  Armstrong  or  some 
other  biographer,  has  not  confounded  Richard  Montgomery  with  his  elder 
brother  Alexander.  The  susiiicion  arises  readily  because  cruel  acts  said  1o 
have  been  performed  in  Canada  by  Alexander  Montgomery  were  ascribed  to 
Richard  (see  Montcalm  and  AVolfe,  by  Francis  Parkman,  Vol.  II.,  p.  261).  Of 
course  it  is  not  impossible  that  the  statement  of  Mr.  Aeheson,  although  it 
may  not  be  strictly  true,  leaves  a  correct  impression,  for  Richard  Montgomery 
may  have  spent  considerable  portions  of  his  younger  days  with  his  brother 
at  Conroy.  For  Richard  Montgomery  see,  as  above,  Montgomery  of  Beaulieu, 
Burke's  Landed  Gentry  (1S8G),  Vol.  II.,  p.  12SS.  See,  also,  "Ancestry  of 
General  Richard  Montgomery,"  by  Thomas  H.  Montgomery,  in  the  "  New 
York  Genealogical  and  Biographical  Record"  (July,  1S71),  where,  it  is 
stated,  his  relationship  to  the  ancestral  Scottish  family  is  traced.  For  Guy 
Carleton,  see  Burke's  Peerage,  under  Lord  Dorchester.  It  is  very  ch'flicult  to 
be  perfectly  accurate,  with  information  now  readily  accessible,  in  respect  to 
statements  regarding  the  Scotch-Irish,  and  it  is  evident  that  men  who  came 
from  the  north  of  Ireland,  or  descendants  from  such  persons,  have  been  not 
infrequently  claimed  as  of  Scotch  extraction,  without  sufficient  investigation, 


16 

low-soldiers  at  first,  became  formidable  foes  later.  In  the 
latter  part  of  the  year  1775,  General  Montgomery,  as  is 
well  known,  led  an  army  of  the  disaffected  colonies  into 
Canada.  Guy  Carleton  was  in  command  of  the  Canadian 
forces  which  opposed  him.  They  were  both  brave  and  able 
men.  Montgomery  had  the  advantage  at  first ;  he  took 
Montreal  and  other  places,  and  succeeded  in  placing  his 
army  between  Carleton's  troops  and  Quebec.  The  latter 
general's  position  seemed  desperate.  But  he  was  equal  to 
the  occasion.  You  have  often  heard  the  story  of  his  action 
at  this  juncture  of  affairs.  Disguised  as  a  French  Canadian 
peasant  or  as  a  fisherman,  with  a  faithful  aide-de-camp 
also  disguised,  he  got  into  a  little  boat  to  go  down  the  St. 
Lawrence  to  Quebec.  He  reached  Three  Rivers,  and  found 
it  full  of  the  enemy.  He  and  his  companion  stayed  long 
enough  in  the  place  to  take  some  refreshments  and  then, 
unrecognized,  continued  their  journey.  Finally  they  over- 
hauled two  schooners  flying  the  British  flag,  were  taken 
aboard  and  carried  to  Quebec.  Montgomery  united  with 
Benedict  Arnold,  who  had  made  a  futile  attempt  to  take  the 
citadel  of  Quebec,  at  Pointe  aux  Trembles  and,  together, 
they  proceeded  to  make  another  attempt  to  take  Quebec. 
They  reached  the  Plains  of  Abraham,  and  demanded  its 
surrender.  Carleton  declined  to  surrender.  After  battering 
the  walls  of  the  citadel  for  a  short  time  ineftectually, 
Montgomery  determined  to  storm  the  town.  You  recall  the 


and  when  they  had  but  little  Scotch  blood.  Many  of  the  Presbyterians  of  the 
north  of  Ireland  were  of  Huguenot,  Welsh,  English,  and  other  extractions. 
I  have  taken  reasonable  pains  to  be  accurate,  but  cannot  hope  that  I  have  been 
perfectly  so.  Two  things  are  evident,  however,  namely,  that  very  large  num- 
bers of  emigrants  from  Ireland  of  Scotch  blood  came  to  this  country  in  the  ISth 
century,  and  that  they  exerted  a  great  influence  here  for  good,  particularly  in 
the  Southern  Middle  and  Southern  Atlantic  States.  It  may  also  be  added, 
without  disparagement  of  the  good  qualities  of  men  of  other  extractions,  that 
the  powerful  and  beneficent  influence  which  they  exerted  was  largely  the 
result  of  peculiarly  Scottish  characteristics.  It  is  also  not  improbable  that 
many  persons  without  Scotch  blood  in  their  veins  came  from  being  trained  in 
childhood  and  boyhood  in  Scotch  communities,  to  have  what  we  recognize  as 
Scotch  characteristics. 


17 

failure  of  the  attempt,  and  the  tragic  end  of  Montgomery. 
As  he  and  his  men  came  under  the  fire  of  the  enemy  its 
cannon  greeted  them  with  a  destructive  discharge,  and  the 
brave  general  and  many  of  his  men  were  hiid  low  in  death. ^ 
After  the  battle  Carleton  sought  out,  amid  the  winter  snow, 
the  body  of  his  fellow-countryman  and  neighbor,  and,  pay- 
ing the  tribute  of  one  Scotch-Irishman  to  another  Scotch- 
Irishman,  had  it  buried  with  military  honors. 

In  1682,  William  Pcnn  interested  a  number  of  promi- 
nent Scotchmen  in  a  scheme  for  colonizing  the  eastern 
section  of  New  Jersey.  "These  Scotchmen,"  says  Douglas 
Campbell,  "  sent  over  a  number  of  settlers  who  have  largely 
given  character  to  this  sturdy  little  State,  not  the  least  of 
their  achievements  being  the  building-up,  if  not  the  nominal 
founding,  of  Princeton  College,  which  has  contributed  so 
largely  to  the  scholarship  of  America."^ 

While  considerable  numbers  of  the  Scotch-Irish  emigrated 
to  New  England  in  the  great  exodus  from  Ireland  during 
the  fifty  or  sixty  years  prior  to  the  American  Revolution, 
the  great  body  of  those  coming  here  entered  the  continent 
by  Avay  of  Philadelphia.  Penn's  Colony  was  more  hospit- 
able to  immigrants  of  faiths  differing  from  the  prevalent 
belief  of  its  inhabitants,  than  were  most  of  the  New  Enofland 
provinces. 

Then,  too,  the  Scotch-Irish  emigrants  were  mostly 
farmers,  and  did  not  find  New  England  so  favorable  from 
an  agricultural  point  of  view  as  some  of  the  middle  and 
southern  colonies. 

Immigrants  came  in  such  numbers  to  Philadelphia  as  to 
frighten  James  Logan,  the  Scotch-Irish  ^  Quaker  Governor 


1  Scoteli-Irish  in  America,  Tliird  Cong.,  p.  202.  (Paper  by  Stuart  Acheson.) 
Tlie  writer  would  seem  to  have  been  uiistal<eu  in  supposing  that  Montgomery 
was  killed  by  shot  fired  from  the  guns  of  Fort  Diamond  on  the  summit  of  the 
citadel. 

-  Baird,  Rev.  Robert,  Religion  in  the  United  States  of  America,  p.  154,  as 
referred  to  by  Campbell,  Vol.  II.,  p.  484. 

3 Professor  George  Macloskie  in  Scotch-Irish  in  America,  Third  Cong.,  p.  97. 
2 


18 

of  Pennsylvania  from  1699  to  1749.  He  complains  in  1725 
that  "it  looks  as  if  Ireland  were  to  send  all  her  inhab- 
itants hither ;  if  they  will  continue  to  come,  they  will 
make  themselves  proprietors  of  the  province."'  The  bold 
stream  of  settlers  who  came  to  Philadelphia,  flowed  west- 
ward and  occupied  considerable  portions  of  the  province  of 
Pennsylvania. 

It  is  said  of  Pittsburg  that  it  is  Scotch -Irish  in  "  sub- 
stantial origin,  in  complexion  and  history, — Scotch-Irish 
in  the  countenances  of  the  living  and  the  records  of  the 
dead." 2 

It  is  estimated  that  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution  one- 
third  of  the  population  of  Pennsylvania   was  Scotch-Irish. 

A  large  portion  of   the  emigrants  who  came  from   the 
north  of  Ireland  to  Philadelphia,  went  south.     This  was 
especially  the  case  after  Braddock's  defeat  in  1755,  made" 
the  Indians  bold  and  aggressive  in  the  west. 

A  very  large  portion  of  the  people  in  the  South  Atlantic 
States  are  of  Scotch-Irish  extraction. 

During  many  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  a  stream 
of  emigrants  flowed  south,  through  Maryland,  Virginia, 
North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  and  across  the  Savannah 
river,  into  Georgia.  Their  movements  were  parallel  with 
the  lines  of  the  Blue  Ridge. 

In  Maryland  they  settled,  mainly,  in  the  narrow  slip  of 
land  in  the  western  part  of  the  State,  although  they  were 
to  be  found  scattered  through  all  portions  of  the  province. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  and  the  earlier 
years  of  the  eighteenth  centuries  there  were  many  Scotch- 
Irish  residents  in  Virginia,  east  of  the  Blue  Ridge  moun- 
tains ;  some  were  even  settled  west  of  that  range.  In 
1738  began  a  movement  which  completely  filled  the  valley 

iMacloskie,  in  First  Scotch-Irish  Congress,  p.  95.  Professor  Macloskie 
speaks  of  Logan  as  a  Scotch-Irish  Quaker  who  was  "  a  native  of  County 
Armagh,  Ireland." 

•■^The  Scotch-Irish  in  Western  Pennsylvania.  John  Dalzell,  in  Second 
Scotch-Irish  Congress,  p.  175. 


19 

west  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  from  Pennsylvania  to  North 
Carolina,  with  men  of  that  race,  excepting  the  lower  por- 
tion, which  was  occupied  by  Germans. 

In  the  year  1736,  Henry  McCuUock,  from  the  province 
of  Ulster,  obtained'  a  grant  of  64,000  acres  in  the  present 
County  of  Duplin,  North  Carolina,  and  introduced  upon 
it  between  three  tind  four  thousand  of  his  Scotch-Irish 
countrymen  from  the  north  of  Ireland. 

Besides  the  large  number  of  emigrants  of  this  nationality 
who  came,  through  Virginia  from  Pennsylvania,  into 
North  Carolina,  many  ships  filled  with  Scotch-Irish  passen- 
gers from  the  north  of  Ireland  came  into  Charleston  and 
other  southern  ports,  and  the  emigrants  moving  north  met 
those  coming  south  from  Pennsylvania  and  settled  with 
them  in  North  Carolina  and  other  southern  States. 

Our  associate,  William  Wirt  Henry,  in  speaking  of  the 
Scotch-Irish,  says:  "So  great  was  the  population  of  the 
race  in  North  Carolina  before  the  Revolution,  that  they 
may  be  said  to  have  given  direction  to  her  history.  With 
their  advent,  began  the  educational  history  of  the  State. "^ 

Dr.  David  Ramsay,  an  ardent  patriot  in  Revolutionary 
times,  like  the  New  Hampshire  physician,  Matthew 
Thornton,  wrote  much,  as  is  well  known,  about  the  history 
of  South  Carolina.  He  says,  as  quoted  by  Henry,  in 
speaking  of  pre-revolutionary  times,  that  "scarce  a  ship 
sailed  from  any  of  'the  ports  of  Ireland'  for  Charleston, 
that  was  not  crowded  Avith  men,  women,  and  children." 
He  speaks,  too,  of  a  thousand  emigrants  who  came  in  a 
single  year  from  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia,  driving  their 
horses,  cattle  and  hogs  before  them  and  who  were  assigned 
places  in  the  western  woods  of  the  province.  These,  says 
Henry,  were  Scotch-Irish.  The}'^  were  distinguished  by 
economy  and  industry,  and  the  portion  of  the  province 
occupied  by  them  soon  became  its  most  populous  part. 


1  The  Seotch-Irisb  of  the  South,  by  William  Wirt  Henry,  in  First  Scotch- 
Irish  Congress,  pp.  123,  124. 


20 

Eamsay  says,  that  to  this  element  in  the  population, 
"  South  Carolina  is  indebted  for  much  of  its  early  litera- 
ture. A  great  proportion  of  its  physicians,  clergymen, 
lawyers  and  schoolmasters  were  from  North  Britain."  ^ 

The  early  settlers  of  South  Carolina  were  largely  Hugue- 
nots ;  the  province  seems  to  have  been  generously  peopled, 
too,  by  the  Scotch-Irish,  a  race  which  was  connected  by  a 
religious  tie  to  the  Huguenots,  both  being  warm  Calvinists. 

The  prosperity  of  Georgia  has  been  largely  owing  to 
Scotch-Irish  settlers  and  their  descendants. 

The  pioneers  of  Kentucky  were  mainly  from  Virginia 
and  North  Carolina,  and  its  population  is  largely  Scotch- 
Irish  in  its  ancestry.  The  first  settlers  of  Tennessee  crossed 
over  the  mountains  from  North  Carolina  and  with  subse- 
quent emigrants  made  that  State  one  of  those,  a  very  large 
portion  of  whose  people  are  of  the  same  race.  Mississippi 
and  Alabama,  Florida,  Arkansas  and  Missouri,  were  settled 
at  first  by  emigrants  from  adjacent  States  and  have  all  of 
them,  naturally,  a  considerable  Scotch-Irish  element  in  their 
population. 

Texas  was  conquered  by  a  Scotch-Irishman,  General 
Sam  Houston,^  and  has  many  fjimilies  of  Scotch-Irish 
ancestry  within  its  borders.  There  are  many  representa- 
tives of  this  race  in  other  States,  such  as  Ohio,  Iowa,  Min- 
nesota and  California.  The  race  has  been  prolific  and, 
being  of  a  hardy,  brave  and  adventurous  spirit,  has  gone 
everywhere  throughout  the  country. 

The  story  of  Cherry  Valley,  a  little  town  in  New  York 
that  was  settled  by  Scotch-Irishmen  in  1741,  is  very 
interesting,  but  I  have  no  time  to  tell  it.^ 

1  Ramsay  as  quoted  by  Heury,  First  Coug.  of  the  Scotcb-Irisb,  p.  125. 

2"  His"  (Houston's)  "  ancestors  on  his  father's  and  mother's  side  are  traced 
back  to  the  Highlands  of  Scotland."  They  emigrated  to  the  north  of  Ireland. 
"  Here  they  remained  until  the  siege  of  Derry,  in  which  they  were  engaged, 
when  they  emigrated  to  Pennsylvania."— D.  C.  Kelley  in  Scotch-Irish  in 
America,  Second  Congress,  p.  145. 

3  From  this  town  came  the  ancestois  of  the  kite  Douglas  Campbell,  a 
descendant  of  one  of  the  defenders  of  Londonderry,  Ireland,  whose  recently 


21 

The  Scotch-Irish  settlers  who  came  to  this  country 
repaired,  for  the  most  part,  to  the  frontiers  of  the  colonies. 
This  is  true  of  those  who  went  to  the  Middle  and  South 
Atlantic  States,  where  they  were  found  mainly  in  their 
western  portions.  It  was  true,  also,  of  such  as  came  to 
Maine,  to  Londonderry,  New  Hampshire,  and  to  Worces- 
ter, Massachusetts.  The  result  was  that  it  was  in  very 
large  measure  people  of  this  nationality  who  were  engaged 
in  the  Indian  struggles  which  preceded  the  Revolution. 

We  find  men  of  this  race  actively  engaged  in  the  Old 
French  war,  which  began  in  1744,  and  in  the  later  contest 
between  Great  Britain  and  France  on  this  continent,  upon 
the  renewal  of  hostilities  in  1756.  Thus,  soldiers  from 
Londonderry  served  under  Pepperell  in  the  expedition 
against  Cape  Breton.  During  the  later  attempt  upon 
Crown  Point,  three  companies  of  hardy  men,  who  had 
adroitness  in  traversing  woods,  were  selected  from  the 
New  Hampshire  regiment  to  act  as  rangers.  Many  of  the 
men  selected  were  from  the  Scotch-Irish  town  of  London- 
derry, and  the  three  captains,  Robert  Rogers,  John  Stark, 
and  William  Stark,  had  all  been  residents  of  the  same 
place.  The  two  latter  were  brothers  and  sons  of  an  early 
Scotch-Irish  inhabitant  of  the  town.^  Rogers,  a  brave  and 
skilful  officer,  was  soon  made  Major,  and  his  body  of 
rangers  performed  active  and  efficient  service.  A  com- 
pany of  soldiers  from  Londonderry  aided  in  the  reduction 
of  Canada  in  the  campaign  when  Quebec  was  taken  by 
Wolfe. 

In  the  Colonial  wars  which  preceded  the  Revolution,  it  is 
stated  that  the  soldiers  of  Virginia  were  principally  drawn 

published  work.  The  Puritan  in  England,  Holland  and  America,  has  attracted 
considerable  attention.  The  last  chapter  of  his  volumes  is  an  interesting 
summary  of  much  that  has  become  known  about  the  Scotch-Irish  in  the 
United  States.— See  Campbell,  Vol.  II.,  p.  482,  note.  American  Ancestry. 
(J.  Munsell's  Sons.)     Vol.  8,  1893,  p.  156. 

1  Parker  (p.  239)  says  that  Archibald  Stark,  the  father  of  William  and  John 
Stark,  was,  like  many  of  the  earlj*  emigrants  to  Londonderry,  N.  H.,  "  a 
native  of  Scotland,  and  emigrated  while  young  to  Londonderry  in  Ireland." 


22  » 

from  the  Scotch-Irish  settlements  in  the  valley  west  of  the 
Blue  Ridge  and  in  the  Piedmont  Counties.  Previous  to 
the  encounter  at  Lexington,  three  British  soldiers  deserted 
from  the  army  in  Boston  and  found  their  way  to  London- 
derr3\  Their  hiding  place  was  disclosed  and  a  detachment 
of  soldiers  was  sent  from  Boston  to  arrest  them.  They 
were  taken  prisoners,  but  had  not  gone  far  before  a  com- 
pany of  young  men,  which  had  been  hurriedly  raised  in 
Londonderry,  by  Captain  James  Aiken,  caught  up  with 
their  captors  and  demanded  and  secured  their  release. 
The  rescued  men  afterwards  lived  unmolested  in  London- 
derry.' As  soon  as  the  news  of  the  battle  of  Lexington 
reached  New  Hampshire,  1200  troops  immediately  repaired 
to  Cambridge  and  Charlestown.  Among  these  was  a  large 
company  from  Londonderry,  commanded  by  George  Reed, 
who  upon  the  organization  of  the  troops  at  Cambridge  was 
made  a  Colonel.  The  New  Hampshire  Convention  held  at 
Exeter,  April  25,  1775,  formed  the  troops  of  that  State 
then  near  Boston,  into  two  regiments  under  the  command 
of  Colonels  Reed  and  Stark,  natives  of  Londonderry. 

At  the  tirstcall  of  Congress  for  soldiers  to  defend  Boston, 
Daniel  Morgan,  of  Scotch-Irish  blood,^  immediately  raised 
a  company  of  riflemen  among  his  people  in  the  lower 
valley  of  Virginia,  and  by  a  forced  march  of  six  hundred 
miles  reached  the  beleaguered  town  in  three  weeks. 

The  back  or  upper  counties  of  Virginia  were  Scotch- 
Irish.  Their  representatives  got  control  of  the  House  of 
Burgesses,  and  it  was  by  their  votes,  and  under  the  leader- 
ship of  the  young  Scotchman,^  Patrick  Henry,  that  were 
passed,   in   opposition  to  the  combined   efforts  of  the  old 


1  Parker,  p.  104. 

-  W.  W.  Henry,  in  Scotch-Irish  in  America,  First  Cong.,  p.  118.  - 
3  William  Wirt  Henry  writes  in  the  article  "  Henry,  Patrick,"  in  Appleton's 
Cyclopiedia  of  American  Biography,  of  Patrick  Henry:  "His  father,  John 
Henry,  was  a  Scotchman,  son  of  Alexander  Henry  and  Jean  Robertson,  a 
cousin  of  the  historian  William  Robertson  and  of  the  mother  of  Lord 
Brougham." 


t  23 

leaders  of  the  province,  those  resolutions  denying  the 
validity  of  the  Stamp  Act,  which  roused  the  continent.^ 

While  it  cannot  be  allowed  that  the  Scotch-Irish  people 
of  Mecklenburg  county.  North  Carolina,  passed  resolu- 
tions May  20,  1775,  declaring  their  independence  of  Great 
Britain,  it  is  certain  that  on  the  31st  of  that  month  they 
uttered  patriotic  sentiments  fully  abreast  of  the  time.^ 

The  men  of  this  race  showed  these  sentiments  every- 
where throughout  the  Colonies.  Four  months  before  the 
passage  of  the  resolutions  in  Mecklenburg  County,  the 
freeholders  of  Fincastle  County,  Virginia,  presented  an 
address  to  the  Continental  Congress  in  which  they  declared, 
that  if  an  attempt  were  made  to  dragoon  them  out  of  the 
privileges  to  which  they  were  entitled  as  subjects  of  Great 
Britain  and  to  reduce  them  to  slavery,  they  were  "delib- 
erately and  resolutely  determined  never  to  surrender 
them  to  any  power  on  earth  but  at  the  expense  of"  their 
"lives."  3 

It  was  seventeen  days  before  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence that  eighty-three  able-bodied  men  of  the  Scotch- 
Irish  town  of  Peterborough,  N.  H.,  signed  this  resolution: 

"  We,  the  subscribers,  do  hereby  solemnly  engage  and 
promise,  that  we  will,  to  the  utmost  of  our  power,  at  the 
risk  of  our  lives  and  fortune,  with  arms,  oppose  the  hostile 
proceedings  of  the  British  fleets  and  armies  against  the 
united  Colonies."'^ 

It  has  been  suggested  that  even  after  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  had  been  adopted  by  Congress,  it  would  not 
have  been  signed  and  promulgated  but  for  the  action  of 
John  Witherspoon,  one  of  the  delegates  from  New  Jersey, 
the  President  of  Princeton  College,  a  Scotch  Presbyterian 


1  Henry  in  First  Scotch-Irish  Cong.,  p.  118. 

2  Narrative  and  Critical  History  of  America,  Ed.  by  .Justin  Winsor,  v.  C, 
pp.  256,  257,  note. 

y  Professor   Henry  Alexander  White,  in  Scotch-Irish  in  America,  Second 
Cong.,  p.  232. 
4  Parker,  p.  18G. 


24 

clergyman  and  a  descendant  of  John  Knox.  Seeing  how 
the  other  representatives  held  bacli,  he  rose  in  his  place,  you 
remember,  and  declaring  that  as  his  gray  head  must  soon 
bow  to  the  fate  of  all,  he  preferred  that  it  should  go  by  the 
axe  of  the  executioner  rather  than  that  the  cause  of  inde- 
pendence should  not  prevail.^ 

Several  Scotchmen  and  Scotch-Irishmen  signed  the 
Declaration.  Professor  Macloskie,  a  Scotch-Irish  professor 
in  Princeton  College,  states  that  the  "  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence as  we  have  it  to-day  is  in  the  handwriting  of  a 
Scotch-Irishman,  Charles  Thomson,  the  Secretary  of  Con- 
gress ;  was  first  printed  by  Captain  Thomas  Dunlap,  another 
Scotch-Irishman,  who  published  the  first  daily  newspaper 
in  America  ;  a  third  Scotch-Irishman,  Captain  John  Nixon, 
of  Philadelphia,  first  read  it  to  the  people."^ 

The  Scotch-Irish  came  to  this  country  full  of  bitter  feel- 
ing towards  the  government  of  Great  Britain.  They  had 
been  oppressed  by  that  government  and  they  believed  that 
it  had  wickedly  broken  faith  with  them.  They  hated,  too, 
the  hierarchy  of  the  Church  of  England.  Presbyterians 
as  they  were,  they  had  been  oppressed  by  that  hierarchy. 
They  sympathized,  also,  with  the  Puritans  of  New  Eng- 
land, who  regarded  the  presence  here  of  bishops  and  other 
ecclesiastics  of  the  Church  of  England  as  the  presence  of 
the  emissaries  of  a  foreign  power  that  was  trying  to  reduce 
them  to  subjection. 

It  was  largely  through  Scotch-Irish  influence  and  support 
that  religious  liberty  was  established  in  Virginia  and  else- 
where throughout  this  country.  These  showed  themselves 
when,  in  1776,   Patrick   Henry,    a  Scotchman,  as    before 


iThis  anecdote  appears  in  a  number  of  places.  (See,  e.g.,  Craigbead's 
Scotcb  and  Irisb  Seeds,  etc.,  p.  334.)  Tt  may  be  found  witb  the  particular  turn 
given  to  it  bere  in  Tbe  Scotcb-Irisb  in  America,  First  Cong.,  pp.  182,  183,  in 
an  address  by  Colonel  A.  K.  M'Clure,  of  rhiladelpbia. 

2  Professor  George  Macloskie,  Princeton  College,  to  wbom  Campbell  declares 
bira«elf  indebted  for  the  information  given.  See  Campbell,  Vol.  II.,  p.  487 
(note).    See,  also.  The  Scotch-Irish  iu  America,  First  Congress,  p.  95. 


25 

stated,  led  in  the  movement  which  secured  the  insertion  in 
the  famous  Bill  of  Rights  of  Virginia  of  the  declaration 
that  one  of  the  inalienable  rights  of  man  is  his  right  to 
worship  God  according  to  the  dictates  of  his  conscience. 

It  was  through  the  pressure  of  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians 
that  Jefferson,  in  the  next  session  of  the  assembly,  was 
prompted  to  write,  and  by  their  votes  that  he  secured  the 
passage  of,  the  act  for  the  establishment  of  religious  liberty, 
which  has  done  so  much  to  effect  the  divorce  of  Church 
and  State  in  Virginia  and  throughout  the  Union. 

In  contemplating  the  wide-reaching  results  of  the  exam- 
ple set  here  in  America,  Mr.  William  Wirt  Henry  is  led  to 
add  to  a  statement  similar  to  the  one  just  made,  "Thus 
there  was  completed  by  the  Scotch-Irish  in  Virginia,  in 
1776,  the  Reformation  commenced  by  Luther  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  before."  ^ 

The  Scotch-Irish,  as  you  would  imply  from  what  I  have 
said  before,  entered  into  the  contest  of  the  Revolution,  not  V 
only  to  uphold  civil  and  religious  liberty,  but  also  with  a 
zeal  inspired  by  an  ardent  desire  to  pay  off  old  scores.^  The 
Scotch-Irish  served  in  great  numbers  in  the  Continental 
array  and  in  the  militia  of  the  several  States  during  the 
Revolution,  and  the  achievements  of  their  officers  and 
men  were  often  brilliant.  When  the  British  landed  at 
Charlestown  "the  two  New  Hampshire  regiments  were 
ordered  to  join  the  forces  on  Breed's  Hill.  A  part  were 
detached  to  throw  up  a  work  on  Bunker  Hill,  and  the 
remainder  under"  the  Colonels  born  in  Londonderry, 
"  Stark  and  Reed,  joined  the  Connecticut  forces  under 
General  Putnam,  and  the  regiment  of  Colonel  Prescott,  at 


1  Scotch-Irish  iu  America,  First  Cong.,  p.  123. 

2  Froude  says :  "  But  throughout  the  revolted  colonies,  and,  therefore,  prob- 
ably in  the  first  to  bei^in  the  struggle,  all  evidence  shows  that  the  foremost,  the 
most  irreconcilable,  the  most  determined  in  pushing  the  quarrel  to  the  last  ex- 
tremity, were  the  Scotch-Irish  whom  the  bishops  and  Lord  Donegal  and  Com- 
pany had  been  pleased  to  drive  out  of  Ulster."  -The  English  in  Ireland  iu  the 
18th  Century,  by  J.  A.  Froude,  Vol.  II.,  p.  141  (English  ed.). 


26 

the  rail-fence.  'This  was  the  very  point  of  the  British 
attack,  the  key  of  the  American  position.'"^ 

Again,  it  was  John  Stark  who  hurriedly  gathered  together 
1,400  well-trained  militia  from  New  Hampshire  and  Ver- 
mont, and  instead  of  making  Molly  Stark  a  widow,  beat  the 
detachment  of  troops  which  Burgoyne  had  sent  to  Benning- 
ton, giving  the  Americans  the  much  needed  inspiration  of 
a  victory.  In  less  than  two  months  followed  the  battle  of 
Saratoga,  October  7,  1777.  Burgoyne  was  conducting  an 
armed  reconnoissance  and  much  fighting  ensued.  The  right 
of  the  British  line  was  commanded  by  the  brave  Scotchman, 
General  Simon  Fraser.  On  the  left  of  the  American 
troops  was  the  equally  brave  Scotch-Irish  Colonel  Morgan, 
with  his  regiment  of  sharpshooters.  The  Scotch-Irish  in 
America  were  generally  tine  marksmen.^  Seeing  that  an 
officer  on  an  iron  gray  charger  was  active  in  the  fight  and 
that  wherever  he  went  he  turned  the  tide  of  battle, 
Morgan,  calling  to  some  of  the  best  men  in  his  regiment, 
pointed  to  the  officer  and  said,  "Bring  him  down."  At  the 
crack  of  a  faithful  rifle  the  gallant  British  officer  reeled  in 
his  saddle  and  fell.  That  officer  was  Simon  Fraser,  the 
idol  of  Burgoyne's  army.^  Burgoyne  was  now  in  straits, 
and  fiiiling  to  receive  hoped-for  aid  from  Sir  Henry 
Clinton,  surrendered  his  army  on  the  17th  of  the  month. 

A  distinguished  member  of  this  Society^  has  labored  hard, 
during  the  last  few  years,  in  forcible  and  eloquent  speech, 
to  secure  for  the  pioneer  settler  of  the  Northwestern  Terri- 
tory, General    Rufus  Putman,  of  Rutland,  Massachusetts, 


1  Parker,  p.  106. 

2  Parker  quotes  from  an  uunamed  writer  the  following  w^ords  as  written 
about  the  troops  under  Colonels  Stark  and  Reed  at  Bunker  Hill :  "  Almost 
every  soldier  equalled  William  Tell  as  a  marksman,  and  could  aim  his  weapon 
at  au  opposer  with  as  keen  a  relish.  Those  from  the  frontiers  had  gained  this 
address  against  the  savages  and  beasts  of  the  forests."— Parker's  History  of 
Londonderry,  p.  106. 

3  William  Wirt  Henry  in  First  Scotch-Irish  Congress,  p.  119.  Lossing's  Pic- 
torial Field  Book  of  the  Revolution,  Vol.  I.,  p.  62. 

4  Hon.  George  F.  Hoar. 


27 

due  recognition  of  what  he  regards  as  his  great  merits  as  an 
officer  in  the  Revolutionary  army,  and  his  inestimable  ser- 
vices in  giving  a  proper  tone  to  the  settlements  in  the  north- 
west. It  is  interesting  to  mention  in  connection  with  this 
fact  another  fact,  namely,  that  the  Northwestern  Territory, 
then  claimed  by  Virginia,  was  taken  possession  of  in  1778, 
in  an  ever  memorable  campaign,  by  the  great  soldier, 
Colonel  George  Rogers  Clark,  of  Scotch  descent,^  and 
two  hundred  brave  men  of  the  Scotch-Irish  race  whom 
he  had  collected  for  his  secret  expedition,  in  Augusta 
County,  Virginia,  and  in  Kentucky,  at  the  command  of 
the  Scotch  governor,  Patrick  Henry. 

It  would  be  a  pleasant  task  to  speak  at  length  of  the 
exploits,  during  the  Revolution,  of  officers  and  men  from 
the  Middle  and  Southern  States,  of  Scotch-Irish  extraction, 
for  a  majority  of  the  troops  who  served  on  the  American 
side,  from  Pennsylvania  and  the  States  south  of  it,  seem 
to  have  been  of  that  nationality.  I  can  only  mention, 
however,  the  battle  of  King's  Mountain,  which  was  fought 
by  a  body  of  troops  composed  of  Huguenots  and  of  Scotch- 
Irish  volunteers.  This  battle  took  place  the  7th  of  October, 
1780,  just  three  years  after  the  memorable  engagement  at 
Saratoga,  and,  like  the  earlier  contest,  was  a  turning  point 
in  the  affairs  of  the  Americans.  That  battle  was  the  fore- 
runner of  the  surrender  of  Cornwallis  at  Yorktown,  and 
stood  in  causal  relations  to  it,  just  as  the  battle  of  Saratoga 
resulted  in  the  capture  of  the  army  of  Burgoyne. 

1  Mr.  Reuben  G.  Thwaites,  Secretary  of  The  State  Historical  Society  of  Wis- 
consin, writes  to  the  author  of  this  paper,  as  follows : — 

"  Accordinj^  to  all  family  traditions,  John  Clark,  great-grandfather  of  George 
Rogers  Clark,  came  to  Virginia  in  1630,  from  the  southwest  part  of  Scotland. 
According  to  one  tradition,  a  few  years  later,  he  visited  friends  in  Maryland, 
and  married  there  'a  red-haired  Scotchwoman.'  George  Rogers  Clark  him- 
self,  had  'sandy'  hair;  another  tradition  lias  it,  that  the  woman  was  a  Daue. 
Their  one  son,  William  John,  died  early,  leaving  two  sons,  John('-)  and  Jona- 
than. Jonathan  was  a  bachelor,  and  left  his  estate  to  his  brother's  son,  John(3). 
One  of  William  John's  daughters  married  a  Scotch  settler,  McCloud,  and  their 
daughter  married  Jobu  Rogers,  father  of  the  Ann  Rogers  who  married  John 
Clark (^),  her  cousin,  and  thus  she  became  the  mother  of  George  Rogers  Clark. 
So  George  Rogers  Clark  had  Scotch  ancestry  on  both  sides  of  the  house." 


28 

Besides  the  officers  already  mentioned,  the  Scotch-Irish 
contributed  to  the  Continental  army  during  the  Revolution 
such  men  as  General  Henry  Knox  of  Massachusetts/ 
General  George  Clinton  of  New  york,^  and,  as  claimed  on 
apparently  good  grounds,  Colonel  John  Eager  Howard  of 
Maryland,  who  changed  the  fortunes  of  the  day  at  the  battle 
of  Cowpens,  Colonel  William  Campbell  of  Virginia,  who 
won  the  battle  of  King's  Mountain,  and  General  Andrew 
Pickens  of  South  Carolina.^ 

"  After  the  adoption  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
the  various  States  proceeded  to  form  their  independent 
governments.  Then  the  Scotch-Irish  gave  to  New  York 
her  first  governor,  George  Clinton,  who  filled  the  position 
for  seven  terms,  of  three  years  each,  and  died  during  his 
second   term    of  office    as    Vice-President    of  the   United 


1  See  Life  and  Correspoudeuce  of  Henry  Knox,  etc.,  by  Francis  S.  Drake, 
Boston,  1873,  pp.  8,  9. 

2  American  Ancestry,  Vol.  VI.,  1891,  p.  52. 

3  General  Anthony  Wayne,  the  brave  hero  of  Stony  Point,  is  commonly 
spoken  of  as  a  Scotch-Irishman.  His  father  was  born  in  "Wicklow  County, 
Ireland.  There  was  a  tradition  in  the  family  that  the  Waynes  were  of  Welsh 
origin.  They  may  have  intermarried  with  persons  of  Scotch  blood,  however. 
(See  American  Ancestry,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  75.)  General  John  Sullivan  of  Maine 
and  New  Hampshire,  older  brother  of  Governor  James  Sullivan  of  Massachu- 
setts, is  sometimes  claimed  as  a  Scotch-Irishman.  He  certainlj'  was  Irish,  but 
I  do  not  find  that  he  was  Scotch  also.  In  Craighead's  Scotch  and  Irish  Seeds 
in  American  Soil,  Rev.  Dr.  Smith  is  quoted  as  saying  that  General  Morgan,  the 
hero  of  Cowpens,  and  General  Pickens,  who  made  the  arrangements  for  that 
battle,  were  "both  Presbyterian  elders,"  and  that  "nearly  all  under  their 
command  were  Presbyterians."  (p.  342.)  Dr.  Smith  is  also  quoted  as  saying, 
that"  in  the  battle  of  King's  Mountain,  Colonel  Campbell"  and  several  other 
high  officers  were  Presbyterian  elders,  and  that  "  the  body  of  their  troops 
were  collected  from  Presbyterian  settlements."  (p.  342.)  General  Wayne  is 
mentioned  as  a  Presbyterian,  (p.  340.)  Of  course  there  were  many  Presby- 
terians not  of  Scotch  or  Scotch-Irish  blood,  but  men  of  those  races  who 
emigrated  to  America  and  their  families  were  for  the  most  part  of  that 
denomination.  The  picturesque  Kentuckian,  Daniel  Boone,  is  often  spoken  of 
as  a  Scotch-Irishman.  It  is  well  known  that  the  late  Lyman  C.  Draper  had  un- 
usual facilities  for  finding  out  the  truth  in  regard  to  the  Boones.  Mr.  Reuben 
G.  Thwaites  writes  me  from  Madison,  Wisconsin,  as  follows :  "  Daniel  Boone's 
father  was  of  pure  English  stock,  from  Devonshire;  his  mother,  Sarah 
Morgan,  was  a  Welsh  Quaker.  Draper's  notes  clearly  indicate  that  he  dis- 
carded the  Scotch-Irish  theory  regarding  Sarah." 


29 

States.  To  Delaware  they  gave  her  first  governor,  John 
MacKinney.  To  Pennsylvania  they  gave  her  war  governor, 
Thomas  McKean,  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  To  New  Jersey  Scotland  gave  her  war 
governor,  William  Livingston,  and  to  Virginia,  Patrick 
Henry,  not  only  her  great  war  governor"  but  her  civil 
leader.^ 

"It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  in  American  history,"  writes 
Douglas  Campbell,  "that  of  the  four  members  of  Wash- 
ington's cabinet,  Knox,  of  Massachusetts,  the  only  New 
Englander,  was  a  Scotch-Irishman ;  Alexander  Hamilton 
of  New  York  was  a  Scotch-Frenchman  ;  Thomas  Jefferson 
was  of  Welsh  descent;  and  the  fourth,  Edmund  Eandolph, 
claimed  among  his  ancestors  the  Scotch  Earls  of  Murray. 
New  York  also  furnished  the  first  Chief  Justice  of  the  United 
States,  John  Jay,  who  was  a  descendant  of  French  Hugue- 
nots;  while  the  second  Chief  Justice,  John  Rutledge,  was 
Scotch-Irish,  as  were  also  Wilson  and  Iredell,  two  of  the 
four  original  associate  justices ;  a  third,  Blair,  being  of 
Scotch  origin.  John  Marshall,  the  great  Chief  Justice, 
was,  like  Jefferson,  of  Welsh  descent."  ^ 

After  the  formation  of  the  United  States  ijovernment  we 
find  men  of  the  Scotch-Irish  race  winning  honors  in  war  as 
they  had  done  in  the  Revolution,  and  in  the  earlier  contests 
between  France  and  Great  Britain,  and  with  the  North 
American  Indians. 

At  first,  the  United  States  had  only  a  nominal  army.  In 
the  spring  of  1792  the  number  of  troops  was  increased  to 
5,000,  a  legionary  organization  was  adopted,  and  Anthony 
Wayne  was  appointed  Major-General.  With  this  army 
General  Wayne  took  the  field  against  the  Miami  Indians, 
and  overthrew  them  at  the  battle  of  Maumee  Rapids  on 
August  20,  1794. 

You  all  remember  the  stirring  picture  of  the  Battle  of 


1  Campbell,  Vol.  II.,  p.  4S7. 
^Ibid.,i>.  481,  note. 


30 

Lake  Erie  in  the  Capitol  at  Washington.  Commodore 
Oliver  Hazard  Perry,  taking  his  younger  brother  Alexander 
with  him  and  calling  to  four  sailors  to  row  him  to  the 
Niagara,  is  represented,  with  the  flag  of  his  vessel  wrapped 
around  his  arm,  as  he  passed  from  the  disabled  Laivrence  in 
a  small  boat  to  the  ship  next  in  size  to  the  ruined  flag-ship. 
Going  out  from  Put-in-Bay  the  10th  of  September,  1813, 
with  his  whole  squadron,  he  met  the  British  fleet  in  a  mem- 
orable naval  contest.  Himself  a  young  man  of  twenty- 
eight  years  of  age  he  was  opposed  to  one  of  Nelson's 
veterans.  Himself  a  Scotch-Irishman,  his  opponent,  Cap- 
tain Robert  H.  Barclay,  was  a  Scotchman.  The  engage- 
ment was  hot,  but  at  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  the  gal- 
lant  Perry  saw  the  British  flag  hauled  down.  For  the  first 
time  since  she  had  created  a  navy.  Great  Britain  lost  an 
entire  squadron.  "  We  have  met  the  enemy  and  they  are 
ours,"  is  the  familiar  line  in  which  Perry  announced  his 
victory,  in  a  despatch  to  General  William  Henry  Harrison. 
Commodore  Perry's  mother  was  Sarah  Wallace  Alexander, 
a  Scotch  woman  from  the  north  of  Ireland.^  She  l)ecame 
the  mother  of  five  sons,  all  of  whom  were  officers  in  the 
United  States  Navy.  Two  daughters  married  Captain 
George  W.  Rogers  and  Dr.  William  Butler  of  the  U.  S. 
Navy.  Dr.  Butler  was  the  father  of  Senator  Matthew  Cal- 
braith  Butler,  of  South  Carol int^  After  the  victory  at 
Lake  Erie,  some  farmers  in  Rhode  Island,  you  remember, 
declared,  such  was  the  estimation  in  which  they  held  this 
woman,  that  it  was  "  Mrs.  Perry's  victory."'"^ 

The  furious  battle  at  the  Horse  Shoe  of  the  Tallapoosa 


1  Christopher  Raymond  Perry,  the  father  of  Oliver  Hazard  Perry,  met  his 
future  wife  when  contiued  as  a  prisoner  of  war  atNewry,  Ireland.  She  was  a 
granddaughter  of  "James  Wallace,  an  officer  in  the  Scotch  army  and  a  signer 
of  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant"  who  "  fled  in  16G0  with  others,  from 
County  Ayr  to  the  north  of  Ireland."— Our  Naval  Heroes,  by  D.  C.  Kelley,  in 
The  Scotch-Irish  in  America,  Fifth  Congress,  p.  115.  See,  also,  *'  Ancestry  of 
thirty-three  Rhode  Islanders,"  &c.,  by  John  Osborne  Austin,  under  Perry. 

•2  Our  Naval  Heroes,  by  D.  C.  Kelley,  in  Fifth  Scotch-Irish  Congress,  pp.  114- 
116.    See  Lossiug's  Pictorial  Field  Book  of  the  War  of  1812,  Ch.  25. 


31      • 

River  with  the  Creek  Indians,  March  27,  1814,  brought  to 
the  front  General  Sara  Houston,  a  man  of  the  Scotch-Irish 
race  of  whom  the  country  has  heard  much.  Major-General 
Andrew  Jackson,  another  distinguished  Scotch-Irishman,^ 
commanded  in  that  battle.  Jackson's  father,  also  named 
Andrew,  came  from  Carrickfergus,  on  the  north  coast  of 
Ireland,  in  1765.  This  battle,  was  a  signal  victory,  and 
soon  after  a  treaty  of  peace  was  signed  by  which  the  hostile 
Creeks  lost  the  greater  part  of  their  territory.  It  is 
unnecessary  to  speak  of  General  Jackson's  success  at  New 
Orleans  in  January  of  the  following  year. 

It  must  be  stated,  however,  that  General  James  Miller, 
who  won  universal  admiration  by  his  gallant  attack  upon  a 
batter}^  at  Luncly's  Lane,  July  25,  1814,  was  Scotch-Irish, 
a  native  of  Peterborough  and  out  of  the  loins  of  London- 
derry.^ It  is  he  who  was  subsequently  Collector  of  Cus- 
toms at  Salem  for  more  than  twenty  years,  and  of  whom 
Hawthorne  speaks  so  enthusiastically,  calling  him  "New 
England's  most  distinguished  soldier."-^ 

Zachary  Taylor,  the  popular  hero  of  the  Mexican  war,  is 
generally  reckoned  as  having  been  of  Scotch-Irish  extrac- 
tion ;  of  that  race,  too,  of  course,  was  Matthew  Calbraith 
Perry,  the  brother  of  the  victor  of  the  battle  of  Lake  Erie, 
who    ably  assisted    Scott  as  a  naval  commander  at  Vera 


1  Amoug  other  places  see  Andrew  Jackson,  by  D.  C.  Kelley,  in  Scotch-Irish 
in  America,  Third  Congress,  p.  182.  Andrew  Jackson  as  a  Pubh'c  Man,  by 
William  Graham  Sumner  (American  Statesmen  Series),  Boston:  1SS2.  James 
Parton  in  his  life  of  Andrew  Jackson  says  (pp.  47  and  48,  vol.  1) :  "I  may  as 
well  remark  here  as  anywhere,  that  the  features  and  shape  of  head  of  General 
Jackson,  which  ten  thousand  sign-boards  have  made  familiar  to  the  people  of 
the  United  States,  are  common  in  North  Carolina  and  Tennessee.  In  the 
course  of  a  two  mouths'  tour  in  those  States  among  the  people  of  Scotch-Irish 
descent,  I  saw  more  than  twenty  well-marked  specimens  of  the  long,  slender 
Jacksouian  head,  with  the  bushy,  bristling  hair,  and  the  well  known  features." 

2  See  in  History  of  the   town  of   Peterborough,  N.  II.,  by  Albert  Smith, 
V  Genealogy  and  history  of  Pctei-borough  families,"  p.  147.    In  the  sketch  of 

General  Miller  in  Smith's  history  is  a  letter  to  his  wife  liuth,  written  from  Fort 
Erie,  July  2S,  1814,  three  days  after  the  battle  of  Luudy's  Lane. 

3  *'  The  Custom  House,"  introductory  to  the  Scarlet  Letter. 


32 

Cruz,  and  who  afterwards  organized  and  conducted  with 
marked  success  the  well  known  expedition  to  Japan. 

OiEcers  and  men  of  the  Scotch-Irish  race  served  in  large 
numbers  on  both  sides  in  the  late  Civil  War,  but  I  cannot 
stop  to  mention  even  the  names  of  the  most  distinguished. 

Mr.  Campbell  says  "  of  the  twenty-three  Presidents  of 
the  United  States,  the  Scotch-Irish  have  contributed  six — 
Jackson,  Polk,  Taylor,  Buchanan,  Johnson,  Arthur;  the 
Scotch  three — Monroe,  Grant,  Hayes  ;  the  Welsh  one — 
Jefferson  ;  and  the  Hollanders  one — Van  Buren.  Garfield's 
ancestors  on  his  father's  side  came  from  England,  but  the 
family  line  is  traced  back  into  Wales  ;  his  mother  was  a 
French  Huguenot.  Cleveland's  mother  was  Irish ;  Benja- 
min Harrison's  mother  was  Scotch."^  "The  pedigrees  of 
Madison  and  Lincoln  are  doubtful."^ 

Six  of  the  early  settlers  of  the  Scotch-Irish  town  of 
Londonderry,  or  their  descendants,  writes  Parker,  "have 
filled  the  gubernatorial  chair  of  New  Hampshire,  namely, 
Matthew  Thornton,  who  was  President  of  the  Provincial 
Congress,  in  1775,  Jeremiah  Smith,  Samuel  Bell,  John 
Bell,  Samuel  Dinsmore,  and  Samuel  Dinsmore,  Jr."^ 

To  these  names  must  be  added  at  least  one  more,  namely, 
that  of  our  late  associate,  Governor  and  United  States  Sen- 
ator, Charles  Henry  Bell,  of  Exeter,  who  was  the  third 
chief  magistrate  of  New  Hampshire,  bearing  the  surname  of 
the  ancestor  of  the  three,  John  Bell  of  Londonderry,  N.  H. 
Our  late  associate  John  James  Bell,  grandson  of  Governor 
Samuel  Bell  and  son  of  Judge  Samuel  D.  Bell,  and  Hon. 
Luther  V.  Bell,  formerly  Superintendent  of  the  McLean 
Asylum,  Somerville,  Massachusetts,  were  also  descendants 
of  John  Bell  of  Londonderry. 

1  Campbell,  Vol.  2,  p.  493.  note. 

-  Ibid.  The  writer  of  this  paper  has  not  studied  the  pedigrees  of  the  presi- 
dents, but  f^ives  the  statement  made  regarding  the  above  as  that  of  an  in\  esti- 
gator  who,  while  not  by  any  means  free  from  mistakes,  is  pretty  careful  in  re- 
spect to  assertions.  The  same  remark  should  be  made  regarding  some  of  the 
other  pedigrees  contained  in  other  extracts  from  Mr.  Campbell's  History. 

3  Parker,  p.  208. 


33 

The  Kev.  Dr.  Joseph  MacKean,  first  President  of  Bow- 
doin  College,  was  a  native  of  Londonderry.^ 

The  venerable  Rev.  Dr.  John  H.  Morison,  of  Boston,  is 
of  Scotch-Irish  extraction  and  is  descended  from  the  father 
of  the  first  male  child  born  in  Londonderry.  It  is  of  him 
that  the  story  is  told  that  after  he  had  delivered  an  election 
sermon  before  the  New  Hampshire  legislature,  and  it  had 
been  moved  to  print  a  certain  number  of  copies  of  the  dis- 
course, a  member  rose  and  said  that  he  would  move  that 
additional  copies  be  printed  if  the  brogue  of  the  preacher 
could  be  reproduced. 

Horace  Greeley,  according  to  Whitelaw  Reid,  was  of 
Scotch-Irish  ancestry  on  both  sides  of  his  house.- 

John  Caldwell  Calhoun,  the  great  Southern  statesman, 
like  his  sturdy  opponent,  President  Jackson,  was  of  the 
Scotch-Irish  race,*'  so  were  the  great  inventors,  Robert 
Fulton,"*  Cyrus  H.  McCormick,^  and  Samuel  Finley  Breese 


1  His  father,  Jolm  MacKean,  was  born  April  13,  1715,  at  Biill3'mone_v,  in  the 
County  of  Antrim,  Ireland,  and  was  about  four  years  of  age  when  his  father 
emigrated  to  this  country.— Parker,  p.  224. 

'^^ee  "Greeley,  Horace,"  written  by  Whitelaw  Eeid,  in  Appleton's  Cyclo- 
paedia of  American  Biography. 

3  John  C.  Calhoun  was  the  grandson  of  James  Calhoun,  who  is  said  to  have 
emigrated  from  Donegal,  Ireland,  in  1733  (John  C.  Calhoun,  by  Dr.  H.  von  Hoist, 
p.  S.)  John  C.  Calhoun  was  the  son  of  Patrick  Calhoun,  whom  James  Parton, 
in  his  Famous  Americans  of  Recent  Times  speaks  of  (pp.  117,  llS)  as  a  Scotch- 
Irishman,  who,  with  Andrew  Jackson  and  Andrew  Johnson,  other  Scotch- 
Irishmen,  ilhistrates  well  the  "  North  of  Ireland  "  character.  Patrick  Calhoun 
was  a  Presbyterian  like  his  father  (J.  Randolph  Tucker,  in  article  '"Calhoun, 
John  Caldwell  "  in  Appleton's  Cyclop;edia  of  American  Biography).  In  1770, 
Patrick  Calhoun  (von  Hoist,  p.  8,)  married  Martha  Caldwell,  who,  says  John 
S.  Jenkins  in  his  Life  of  John  Caldwell  Calhoun  (p.  21),  was  a  daughter  of  a 
Scotch-Irish  Presbyterian,  who,  according  to  Tucker,  was  an  emigrant  from 
Ireland. 

*  "  Robert  Fulton  was  born  in  Little  Britain,  Lancaster  Co.,  Pa.,  17G5.  He 
was  of  respectable  though  not  wealthy  family.  His  father  and  mother  were 
of  Scotch-Irish  blood.  Their  families  were  supposed  to  be  a  part  of  the  great 
emigration  from  Ireland  in  1730-31.  The  Fulton  family  were  probably  among 
the  early  settlers  of  the  town  of  Lancaster,  as  the  father  of  Robert  Fulton 
was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  that  place."— The 
Inventors  of  the  Scotch-Irish  race,  by  J.  H.  Bryson,  in  The  Scotch-Irish  in 
America,  Fourth  Congress,  p.  175. 

5  Scotch-Irish  in  America,  First  Congress,  p.  101,  Fourth  Congress,  p.  185. 
3 


34 

Morse.  The  last  named  was  the  son  of  our  late  associate 
Rev.  Jedidiah  Morse,  and  the  great-grandson  of  Rev.  Dr. 
Samuel  Finley,  a  Scotch-Irish  President  of  Princeton^ 
College.  The  celebrated  surgeon,  Dr.  D.  Hayes  Agnew, 
was  Scotch-Irish  on  both  sides  of  his  family. ^  Joseph 
Henry  was  of  Scotch  descent.^  Alexander  Graham  Bell, 
the  inventor  of  the  telephone,  is  a  native  of  Scotland."* 
In  Canada  the  distinguished  statesman  Robert  Baldwin 
and  a  large  portion  of  his  associates  in  securing  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Dominion  of  Canada  are  stated  to  have 
been  of  Scotch-Irish  blood. ^ 

The  versatile  Sir  Francis  Hincks  is  said  to  have  been  of 
the  same  blood. ^ 

It  is  interesting  to  know  that  our  associate  James  Bryce, 
the  sympathetic  and  painstaking  writer  of  the  American 
Commonwealth,  is  a  grandson  of  a  Presbyterian  minister 
of  the  north  of  Ireland  and  a  Scotch-Irishman.' 


1  The  Scotch-Irish  in  America,  Fourth  Congress,  p.  178. 

2  Dr.  D.  Hayes  Agnew,  by  Dr.  J.  Howe  Adams,  Fifth  Scotch-Irish  Congress, 
p.  202. 

3  "  Both  the  father  and  mother  of  Joseph  Henry  came  from  the  southwest 
of  Scotland,  where  the  old  family  name  was  Hendrie.  *  *  *  the  traditions 
of  the  family  on  both  sides  and  the  lion  on  the  coat  of  arms  point  back  to  Irish 
ancestry  of  the  highest  rank;  *  *  *  he  had  a  Scotch-Irish  wife."— Pro- 
fessor G.  Macloskie  in  "  Joseph  Henry "  in  The  Scotch-Irish  in  America, 
Fifth  Congress,  p.  100. 

•iThe  mother  of  Tliomas  A.  Edison,  who  was  Miss  Elliott,  is  of  Scotch-Irish 
blood,  says  Dr.  Bryson. — The  Scotch-Irish  in  America,  Fourth  Congress, 
p.  188. 

5  The  Scotch-Irish  in  Canada  by  Stuart  Acheson,  in  The  Scotch-Irish  in 
America,  Third  Congress,  pp.  203  and  204.  Dr.  William  Warren  Baldwin,  the 
father  of  Robert  Baldwin,  took  the  degree  of  M.D.  at  Edinburgh.  He  came  to 
this  country  from  a  place  near  Cork,  Ireland.  Robert  Baldwin  was  born  in 
Toronto  in  ISOi.— Cyclopiedia  of  Canadian  Biography  by  George  McLean  Rose. 

6  The  Scotch-Irish  in  Canada  by  S.  Aclieson,  just  referred  to,  p.  206.  Sir 
Francis  Hincks  was  born  in  ^ork,  Ireland,  son  of  Thomas  Dix  Hincks,  a 
Presbyterian  minister.  The  latter  was  born  in  Dublin  and  married  Anne 
Boult  of  Chester.  He  was  a  son  of  Edward  Hincks  (m.  Dix)  who  moved 
from  Chester.— See  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  Appleton's  Cycloptcdia 
of  American  Biography  and  Cyclopaedia  of  Canadian  Biography  just  mentioned. 

"Rev.  James  Bryce  (1767-1857)  went  from  Scotland,  where  he  was  born, 
to  Ireland,  and  settled  in  1805,  as  minister  of  the  anti-burgher  church  in 
Killaig,  Co.  Londonderry.    His  son,  James  Bryce  (1800-1877),  was  born  in 


35 

The  Scotch-Irish  emigrants  to  this  country  were,  gen- 
erally speaking,  men  of  splendid  bodies  and  perfect  diges- 
tion. They  were  men,  too,  of  marked  mental  characteristics, 
which  have  impressed  themselves  on  their  posterity.  They 
were  plain,  industrious  and  frugal  in  their  lives.  It  has 
been  said,  such  was  their  thrift,  that  Poor  Richard  himself 
could  have  ffiven"  them  "  no  new  lessons  against  wasteful- 
ness  and  prodigality."^ 

But  they  had  good  intellectual  powers  and  strong  wills. 
They  were  notable  for  practical  sagacity  and  common  sense, 
and  for  tenacity  of  purpose.  Conscious  of  their  merits 
they  were  self-reliant  and  always  ready  to  assert  themselves, 
to  defend  their  own  rights  and  those  of  their  neighbors, 
and  courageously  push  forward.  Plain  in  speech,  they 
were  not  infrequently  frank  to  the  point  of  rudeness.  With 
energy  and  firmness,  while  often  hard,  they  were  affec- 
tionate towards  persons  who  conciliated  them,  hospitable 
and  faithful.  Their  sedateness  was  qualified  by  their  wit 
and  humor. 

The  Scotch-Irish  were  led  to  come  to  this  country,  not 
only  by  the  desire  to  better  their  material  condition  and  to 
escape  persecution,  but  by  a  spirit  of  daring. 

As  we  have  seen  they  took  up  their  abode  on  our 
frontiers  and  defended  us  from  the  depredations  of  Indians, 
and  did  a  large  portion  of  the  fighting  required  in  our  wars. 
They  were  ardent  promoters  of  civil  and  religious  liberty'. 
As  was  to  be  expected,  these  Scotch  Calvinists  breathed 
the  spirit  of  John  Knox  and  contended  fervently  that  the 
final  regulation  of  political  action  belongs  to  the  people. 

For  many  years,  also,  they  had  been  fighting  for  religious 


Killai;;  (neai- Coleraine),  In  1S4G,  appointed  to  the  Hinh  School,  Glasgow. 
See  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  to  which  the  information  contained  in 
the  article  on  the  Bryces  was  furnished  by  the  family.  James  Bryce,  the 
writer  of  the  American  Commonwealth,  the  son  and  grandson  of  the  persons 
just  mentioned,  was  born  in  Belfast,  Ireland,  May  10th,  1838.  His  mother  was 
(or  is)  Margaret,  eldest  daughter  of  James  Young,  Esquire,  of  Abbey ville,  Co. 
Antrim.— See  Men  and  Women  of  the  Time,  Thirteenth  edition,  1891. 
1  Governor  Bell  in  "  Londonderry  Celebration,"  etc.,  pp.  23,  24. 


36 

liberty  in  Scotland  and  Ireland,  and,  taught  by  ecclesiasti- 
cal and  governmental  oppression,  had  become  the  warmest 
adherents  of  reb'gious  liberty.  The  Scotch-Irish  were  a 
devout  and  religious  people,  and  constant  and  earnest  Bible 
readers.  In  many  a  home  in  this  land  they  reproduced 
the  beautiful  picture  of  domestic  piety  which  has  been 
painted  by  the  genius  of  the  immortal  Scottish  poet. 
Burns,  in  the  Cotter's  Saturday  Night. 

The  Scotch-Irish,  however,  were  never  content  with  a 
sentimental  piety,  but  sought  always  with  tremendous 
earnestness,  to  place  religion  on  a  basis  of  knowledge  and 
thought.  They  were  men,  too,  of  high  moral  principle 
and  marked  integrity.  Another  characteristic  which  never 
failed  to  appear  among  settlements  of  this  people,  was  a 
mighty  zeal  for  education.  They  were  never  content  with 
the  lower  grades  of  common  schools,  but  demanded,  every- 
where, classical  high  schools,  and  later,  colleges  and  uni- 
versities. Look  at  the  schools  which  they  established  in 
Londonderry^  and  other  New  Hampshire  towns.  In  the 
little  town  of  Cherry  Valley,  in  New  York,  they  opened 
the  first  classical  school  in  the  central  and  western  portions 
of  that  great  State. ^  They  seem  to  have  furnished  the 
principal  schoolmasters  of  all  the  provinces  south  of  New 
York,  prior  to  the  Eevolution,  and  it  is  noteworthy  that  a 
large  portion  of  the  leaders  in  that  great  movement  in  the 
lower  Middle,  and  Southern  States,  received  their  educa- 
tion under  men  of  this  race.^  From  them  they  undoubt- 
edly caught  an  ardent  love  of  liberty  and  an  increased  glow 
of  patriotism. 

Eeligion,  virtue,  and  knowledge  were  three  passions  of 
the   Scotch-Irish.     With  them  piety   was  never   divorced 


1  Parker,  pp.  82,  83,119  et  seq.,  128.— Bell  in  "Londonderry  Celebration," 
etc.,  p.  32. 

2  76("rf.,pp.  105,  lt»6. 

3  What  the  Scotch-Irish  liave  done  for  Education,  by  G.  Macloskie,  in 
Scotch-Irish  in  America,  First  Congress,  pp.  90-101.— Campbell,  Vol.  II.,  p. 
486,  with  the  references  to  authorities  cited. 


37 

from  education,  and  religion,  as  stated  before,  was  based 
upon  an  intellectual  foundation  and  what  they  believed  to 
be  a  basis  of  knowledge. 

I  began  this  paper  by  saying  that  the  Puritan  owed  a 
tribute  to  the  Scotch-Irishman.  There  is  much  in  common 
between  them,  but  I  have  not  time  to  dwell  upon  the 
resemblances  in  their  characters  and  careers.  They  agreed 
in  their  views  of  religious  truth  and  duty,  and  in  their 
zeal  and  firmness  in  resisting  civil  and  ecclesiastical  domi- 
nation.    They  were  fellow  sufferers  for  conscience'  sake. 

It  has  been  claimed,  and  here  I  conclude,  that  the  Scotch- 
Irish  in  this  country  while  eager  to  enjoy  religious  liberty 
for  themselves,  have  been  ready  to  grant  it  to  others,  and 
that  in  this  respect  they  showed  a  better  spirit  than  the 
Puritans. 

Was  not  the  difference  caused  by  time,  however? 

The  Scotch-Irish  came  here  a  hundred  years  later  than 
the  Puritans.  Meanwhile  the  religious  world  had  ffone 
ahead  and  generally  exercised  a  larger  toleration. 


&^ 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE. 


The  Scotch-Irish  in  America.    Proceedings  of  the  Scotch-Irish  Congress,  at 
Columbia,  Tenn.,  May  8-11, 1889.    Cincinnati :  Robert  Clark  &  Co.,  1889. 

—  Proceedings  and  Addresses  of  the  Second  Congress,  at  Pittsburg,  Pa., 
May  29  to  June  1, 1890.    Cincinnati :  Robert  Clarke  &  Co.,  1890. 

—  Proceedings  and  Addresses  of  the  Third  Congress,  at  Louisville,  Ky.,  May 
14  to  17,  1891.  Nashville,  Tenn. :  Publishing  House  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  Southj  Barber  &  Smith,  Agents. 

—  Proceedings  and  Addresses  of  the  Fourth  Congress,  at  Atlanta,  Ga., 
April  28  to  May  1,  1892.  Nashville,  Tenn. :  Publishing  House  of  the  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church  South,  Barber  &  Smith,  Agents. 

—  Proceedings  and  Addresses  of  the  Fifth  Congress,  at  Springfield,  Ohio, 
May  11  to  14,  1893.    Nashville,  Tenn. :  Barber  &  Smith,  Agents. 

—  Proce'edings  and  Addresses  of  the  Sixth  Congress,  at  Des  Moines,  Iowa, 
June  7  to  10, 1894.    Nashville,  Tenn. :  Barber  &  Smith,  Agents. 

These  volumes  of  proceedings  contain  many  papers  of  great  value,  and 
relate  to  the  history  of  tbe  Scotch-Irish  race  before  coming  to  America 
and  in  this  country. 

In  preparing  the  Report  of  the  Council,  I  have  made  especial  use  of 
"  'i  he  Scotch-Irish  of  the  South,"  a  paper  in  the  first  volume,  by  William 
Wirt  Henry,  and  considerable  use  of  "The  Making  of  the  Ulsterman," 
by  J.  S.  Macintosh;  "The  Scotch-Irish  of  New  England,"  by  Arthur  L. 
Perry,  in  the  second  volume;  "  The  Scotch-Irish  in  Canada,"  by  Stuart 
Acheson,  in  the  third;  "The  Inventors  of  the  Scotch-Irish  race,"  by 
John  H.  Bryson,  in  the  fourth;  and  "Our  Naval  Heroes,"  by  D.  C. 
Kelly,  in  the  fifth  volume. 

Professor  Arthur  L.  Perry's  paper,  read  at  the  Second  Congress,  has 

been  printed  in  pamphlet  form.  (Boston  :  printed  by  J.  S.  Cushing  &  Co.) 

As  printed  in  the  proceedings,  portions  of  this  paper  were  cut  out  and 

their  places  indicated  by  stars.    These  are  given  at  length  in  the  reprint. 

/  Campbell,  Douglas.    "  The  Puritan  in  Holland,  England  and  America."    2  v. 

New  York  :  Harper  &  Brothers,  1892. 

The  matter  regarding  the  Scotch-Irish  is  to  be  found  in  the  last  chapter 
of  the  second  volume.    That  chapter,  besides  embodying  much  other 
material,  gives  a  very  good  summary  of  a  large  portion  of  the  informa- 
tion brought  out  in  the  first  three  Congresses  of  the  Scotch-Irish,  correct- 
ing in  some  cases  statements  made  in  papers  read  in  those  meetings.    I 
have  been  much  indebted  to  Mr.  Campbell's  chapter,  but  think  that  it 
needs  careful  revision. 
For  a  history  of  the  Scotch-Irish  before  coming  to  America,  see  — 
Froude,  James  Anthony.    "  The  English  in  Ireland  in  the  Eighteenth  Cent- 
ury."   3  V.    London,  1874. 


39 

Lecky,  "W.  E,  H.    "A  History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century."    8  v. 

New  York,  1878-lSOO.    London,  1878-1890. 
Harrison,  John.    "  The  Scot  in  Ulster."    Edinburgh  and  London,  1888. 

The  work  of  Mr.  Harrison  is  a  little  volume  which  contains  a  valuable 
epitome  of  the  history  of  the  Scotch-Irish  in  Ulster,  from  the  beginning, 
of  the  Seventeenth  Century  to  the  present  time.    It  is  founded  upon  the 
best  authorities,  which  appear  to  have  been  carefully  consulted.    I  have 
made  free  use  of  Mr,  Harrison's  statements  in  preparing  the  earlier  por- 
tions of  ray  paper. 
The  more  important  works  referred  to  by  Mr.  Harrison  are  the  following  :— 
Calendar  of  State  Papers.    Ireland,  1603. 
Register  of  the  Privy  Council  of  Scotland,  vol.  8. 
The  Montgomery  Manuscripts.    Belfast,  1869. 
The  Hamilton  Manuscripts.    Belfast,  1867. 
State  Papers  of  James  VI.     (Abbottsford  Club.) 

Extracts  from  the  Records  of  the  Burgh  of  Glasgow,  vols.  1630  to  1662. 
Rushworth,  John.    Historical  Collections,  1618  to  1648. 
Eraser's  Magazine,  for  article  on  Ulster  and  its  people.    July-Dec,  1876. 
Reid,  James.    History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  Ireland. 
Thomson's  Acts  of  Scottish  Parliament. 
Benn,  George.    History  of  Belfast. 

Knox,  Alexander.    History  of  the  County  of  Down.    Dublin,  1875. 
Hill,  George.    The  Macdonuels  of  Antrim. 
Hill,  George.    The  Plantation  in  Ulster. 

Gardiner's  Fall  of  the  Monarchy  of  Charles  I.,  chaps.  15  and  16. 
Balfour's  Annals  of  Scotland. 

Memorials  of  the  troubles  in  Scotland.     (Spalding  Club.) 
Turner,  Sir  James.    Memoirs  of  his  own  life  and  time. 
Prendergast's  Cromwellian  Settlement  of  Ireland. 
Woodrow's  History  of  the  Suft'eriugs  of  the  Church  of  Scotland. 
Petty,  Sir  William.    Political  Survey  of  Ireland.    London,  1719. 
Leiand's  History  of  Ireland. 
Macpherson's  History  of  Commerce. 

Macaulay's  History  of  England,  Chapter  12  (Defence  of  Londonderry). 
Walker's  True  account  of  the  Siege  of  Londonderry.    London,  1689. 
Articles  in  the  Ulster  Journal  of  Archaeology. 
Young,  Arthur.    A  Tour  in  Ireland,  made  in  the  years  1776-'77-'78. 
Other  works  on  this  period  of  Scotch-Irish  history  which  may  be  examined 
with  advantage  are  — 
Plowden,  Francis.    Historical  Review  of  the  state  of  Ireland.    Phila.,  1805-6. 

5v.    8°. 
Futhey,  J.  Smith.    Historical  discourse  delivered  on  the  150th  anniversary  of 
the  Octorara  church,  Chester  Co.,  Pa. 

Long  extracts  from  this  address  are  given  in  Smith's  "  History  of 
Peterborough,"  to  be  found  later  on  in  this  list. 
In  regard  to  the  history  of  the  Scotch-Irish  in  New  England,  besides  the 
paper  of  Professor  Perry,  it  is  desirable  to  refer  to  the  following  works  :  — 
Maine.— Willis,  William.    The  Scotch-Irish  immigration  to  Maine,  and  Pres- 
byterianism  in  New  England  (Article  I.  in  Collections  of  the  Maine  Histori- 
cal Society,  Vol.  VI.,  Portland). 


40 

New  Hampshire. — State  Papers  of  New  Hampshire,— particularly  "  Towns," 
Vol.  14,  aud  "  Muster  Rolls,"  Yol.  2. 

— Parker,  Edward  L.    The  History  of  Londonderry,  comprising  the  towns 
of  Derry  and  Londonderry,  N.  H.    Boston:  Perkins  &  Whipple,  1S51. 
I  have  made  large  use  of  the  history  of  Parker  and  the  paper  of  Willis 
in  preparing  this  paper. 
— Smith,  Albert.     History  of   the    town  of    Peterborough,  Hillsborough 

County,  New  Hampshire,  etc.    Boston  :  Press  of  George  H.  Ellis,  1876. 
— Morrison,  Leonard  A.    The  History  of  Windham,  N.  H.  Boston:  Cupples, 

Upham  &  Co.,  1883. 
—Belknap,  Jeremy.    History  of  New  Hampshire. 

— The  Londonderry  Celebration,    Exercises  on  the  150th  anniversary  of  the 
settlement  of  Old  Nutlield,  June  10, 18G9.    Compiled  by  Robert  C.  Mack. 
Manchester:  Published  by  John  B.  Clarke,  1870. 
—  Stark,  Caleb.    Memoir  and  official  correspondence  of  General  J.  Stark,  etc. 

Concord, 1860. 
— Addresses  at  the  dedication  of  the  monument  erected  to  the  memory  of 
Matthew  Thornton,  at  Merrimack,  N.  H.,  September  29, 1892.    Published 
by  authority  of  the  State.    Concord,  N.  H. ;  The  Republican  Press  Associ- 
ation, 1894. 
Vermont.— Thompson,  Zadoc.    History  of  Vermont,  national,  civil  and  sta- 
tistical, in  three  parts. 

Look  in  the  Gazetteer  of  Vermont,  which  is  part  three  of  this  work, 
under  such  headings  as  "  Londonderi-y,"  "  Landgrove,"  etc. 
— McKeen's  History  of  Bradford,  Vermont. 
Massachusetts.     TFb?'ces^e?'.— Records  of    the    Proprietors  of  Worcester, 
Massachusetts.      Edited    by  Franklin  P.  Rice.      In    Collections  of    the 
Worcester  Society  of  Antiquity,  Vol.  III.     Worcester,  Mass. :    Published 
by  the  Society,  1881. 
— Early  records  of  the  town  of  Worcester,  1722-1821.    In  Collections  of  the 
Worcester  Society  of  Antiquity,  Vols.  2,  4,  8, 10,  Part  1  of  11. 

The  Worcester  Society  of  Antiquity  will  continue  the  publication  of 
the  records  of  the  town. 
— Deeds  at  Registry  of  Deeds. 

Worcester  County  was  formed  July  10, 1731.    Deeds  recorded  before 
that  date  can  be  consulted  at  the  Registry  of  Deeds  in  Middlesex  County, 
at  Cambridge,  as   Worcester  belonged    to    Middlesex    County  before 
Worcester  County  was  formed. 
—The  records  of  births  and  deaths  in  Worcester. 

— Worcester  births,  marriages  and  deaths.  Compiled  by  Franklin  P.  Rice. 
Part  I— Births.  Worcester,  Mass.:  The  Worcester  Society  of  Antiquity, 
1894.  In  Collections  of  the  Worcester  Society  of  Antiquity,  Vol.  XII., 
Worcester,  Mass. :  Published  by  the  Society,  1894. 
—Inscriptions  from  the  old  Burial  Grounds  in  Worcester,  Massachusetts, 
from  1727  to  1859,  with  biographical  and  historical  notes.  In  Collections  of 
the  Worcester  Society  of  Antiquity,  Vol.  I. 
— Lincoln,  William.  History  of  Worcester.  Worcester:  Moses  D.  Phillips 
&  Co.,  1837. 

with  additions  by  Charles  Hersey,  1862. 

— Wall,    Caleb    A.      Reminiscences    of    Worcester.     Worcester,     Mass. : 
Printed  by  Tyler  &  Seagrave,  1877. 


41 

—Holland,  Josiah  Gilbert.    History  of  Western  Massachusetts,  2  v.    Spring- 
field: Published  by  Samuel  Bowles  &  Co.,  1855. 
— Waldo   Family. — New    England    Historical    and    Genealogical    Register, 
XVIII.,  17G,  177. 

Bridgman,  Thomas.     Inscriptions  on  monuments    in    King's  Chapel 

Burial  Ground.    Boston,  1853.  pp.  292,  293. 

Family  Memorials  by  Edward  E.  Salisbury   (p.  21)   1885.    rrivately 

printed. 
—The  Scotch-Irish  in  New  England  (George  H.  Smyth).    In  The  Magazine 

of  American  History,  vol.  9,  p.  153. 
— Scotch-Irish  in  New  England   (W.  Willis).    In  New  England  Historical 
and  Genealogical  Register,  12;  231. 
Canada. — Miller,  Thomas.    Historical  and  genealogical  record  of  the  first  set- 
tlers of  Colchester  County  down  to  the  present  time.    Halifax,  Nova  Scotia: 

A.  &  W.  MacKiulay,  1873. 
—Patterson,  George.    A  History  of  the  County  of  Pictou,  Nova  Scotia. 
Montreal :  Dawson  Brothers,  1877. 
Proud,  Robert.    History  of  Pennsylvania,  1681-1742.    Philadelphia:  1797-98. 

2  V.    8°. 
Scotch-Irish  in  Pennsylvania.  In  New  England  Historical  and  Genealogical 

Register,  16;  360. 
Ramsay,  David.     History  of  South  Carolina,  1670-1808.     Charleston,  1809. 
2  V.    8°. 

—History  of  the  American  Revolution.    Philadelphia,  1789.    2  v.    8°. 
— History  of  the  Revolution  in  South  Carolina.    Trenton,  1785.    2  v.    8°. 
Baird,  Robert.    Religion  in  the  United  States  of  America.    Glasgow  and  Lon- 
don, 1844. 
Craighead,  J.  G.    Scotch  and  Irish  Seeds  in  American  Soil.    Philadelphia: 

Presbyterian  Board  of  Publication,  1878. 
Scotch-Irish  (J.  C.  Linehan).    In  Granite  Monthly,  vol.  11. 
Scotch-Irish.    Granite  Monthly,  vol.  12. 
Scotch-Irish  in  America  (G.  H.  Smyth).    In  Magazine  of  American  History, 

4;  161. 
McCulloch,  Hugh.    Men  and  measures  of  half  a  century.    Charles  Scribner's 

Sons,  1888. 
Appleton's  Cyclopaxlia  of  American  Biography,  under  the  words  '"  Matthew 
Thornton,"  "  Asa  Gray,"  etc. 


APPENDIX. 


Letters  which  followed  the  appearance  of  brief  reports  of  the  contents 
of  the  foregoing  paper  in  Boston  newspapers. 

The  Boston  Traveller,  May  1,  1895. 

SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   AMERICA. 

Thomas  Hamilton  Murray  criticises  Samuel  Swett  Green's  Essay  upon 
this  subject. 

To  the  Editor : 

Lawrence,  April  26.— I  have  just  read  a  synopsis  of  the  essay  by 
Samuel  Swelt  Green,  A.M.,  on  the  Scotch-Irish,  so  called,  in  America. 

The  essay  was  delivered  on  April  2t,  at  a  meeting  in  Boston  of  the 
American  Antiquarian  Society. 

While  I  have  the  greatest  respect,  personally,  for  Mr.  Green,  I  am 
obliged  to  impugn  his  reliability  as  an  historian  when  he  treats  of  the 
"  Scotch-Irish"  shibboleth.  I  must  also  take  issue  with  him  both  as 
regards  his  premises  and  conclusions  in  the  essay  just  mentioned.  I  do 
this  because  both  are  fatally  defective  and  based  on  radically  false 
assumptions.  Mr.  Green,  beyond  all  question,  intended  to  be  accurate 
and  honest  in  his  paper  before  the  Antiquarian  Society.  His  sources  of 
information,  however,  were  misleading  and  unfortunate. 

If  I  may  take  his  paper  as  a  criterion,  he  is  not  very  well  posted  on 
Irish  history — ancient,  mediisval  or  modern.  Neither,  taking  the  same 
paper  as  a  basis,  does  he  appear  to  be  well  informed  on  the  component 
elements  of  the  Irish  people.  Lacking  the  essential  basic  knowledge, 
therefore,  he  has  made  a  hodge-podge  of  the  subject  treated  in  endeav- 
oring to  prove  too  much. 

This  idea  also  seems  to  have  struck  Dr.  Hale  at  the  meeting  in  ques- 
tion, who  wondered  if  Mr.  Gi'een  claimed  Columbus  as  Scotch-Irish. 
The  absurdity  of  some  of  the  speaker's  claims  was  also  noted  at  the 
meeting  by  that  excellent  historian.  Prof.  Jameson  of  Brown  University. 

Mr.  Green,  like  most  people  who  use  the  mistaken  term  "  Scotch- 
Irish,"  appears  to  do  so  under  the  supposition  that  it  is  synonymous 
with  Protestant-Irish.  Not  so.  Thousands  of  Protestant-Irish  are  of 
English  descent,  with  not  a  drop  of  Scotch  blood  in  their  veins.-  Other 
thousands  are  of  Huguenot  extraction,  a  point  with  which  Mr.  Green 
does  not  appear  to  have  been  acquainted.  Welsh,  German  and  Dutch 
blood  also  enters  materially  into  this  Protestant-Irish  element. 

The  number  of  Protestant- Irish  of  English  descent  who  came  to  the 
colonies,  when  compared  with  Protestant-Irish  of  possible  Scotch 
descent,  was  as  8  to  1,  while  the  number  of  Keltic  or  Catholic  Irish  who 
came  at  the  same  period  was  as  20  to  1.  Yet,  Mr.  Green  seems  never  to 
have  heard  of  either  the  Anglo-Irish  or  the  Catholic  Irish  in  the  up- 
building of  New  England. 

The  Irish  immigrants  to  this  country  who  were  actually  of  Scottish 
ancestry  were  at  that  time  called,  and  were  content  to  be  called,  merely 
Irish.  It  remained  for  a  later  generation  of  "historians,"  unable  to 
suppress  or  deny  the  nationality  of  these  comers,  to  dub  them  with  what 
was  intended  to  be  a  palliating  term,  Scotch-Irish. 

Mr.  Green  makes  another  blunder  in  regarding  all  Ulsterraen  as  of 
Scotch  descent.    With  him  the  fact  that  a  man  hailed  from  the  northern 


43 

province  is  sufficient  to  stamp  him  as  "  Scotch-Irish."  To  any  student 
of  Irish  history  the  fallacy  of  this  is  at  once  evident.  Why,  some  of  the 
most  ancient  blood  in  Ireland  comes  from  Ulster,  and  at  the  time  of  the 
English  conquest  thousands  of  Catholic  Ulstermen  were  exiled  and  set- 
tled all  along  the  New  England  coast,  from  Maine  to  Connecticut. 
These  Mr.  Green  would  no  doubt  calmly  appropriate  as  "  Scotch-Irish." 

His  assertion  that  the  SuUivans,  John  and  James,  were  of  Scotch  ex- 
traction is  so  utterly  nonsensical  as  not  to  merit  a  serious  reply. 

His  claim  that  the  Perrys  were  "  Scotch-Irishmen"  will  make  Rhode 
Islanders  laugh.  The  mother  of  the  Perrys  was  content  to  be  known  as 
a  plain,  everyday  Irish  woman.  She  was  a  daughter  of  an  Irish  rebel, 
and  was  never  guilty  of  using  a  "Scotch"  or  any  other  extenuating 
prefix. 

Mr.  Green. would  have  us  understand  that  emigration  from  Scotland 
to  Ireland  commenced  at  the  beginning  of  the  17th  century.  In  this  he 
Is  over  a  thousand  years  out  of  the  way.  Migration  and  emigration  be- 
tween the  two  countries  b^an  many  centuries  earlier  than  the  17th,  or 
when  Scotland  became  an  Irish  crj[ony.  When  that  was  Mr.  Green  can 
easily  ascertain  by  giving  the  matter  proper  attention  and  careful  inquiry. 

Alluding  to  the  Presbyterian  Irish  who  settled  at  Worcester,  Mr. 
Green  again  rings  the  changes  on  the  "  Scotch-Irish,"  and  says  they 
introduced  the  Irish  potato.  But  to  be  consistent,  why  does  he  not  call 
it  the  Scotch-Irish  potato  ?     Why  let  the  Irish-Irish  have  the  credit  ? 

In  very  truth  this  "  Scotch-Irish"  fad  has  become  an  unutterable  bore. 
While  some  Irish  people  of  immediate  or  remote  Scottish  descent  did 
unquestionably  come  to  these  shores,  not  five  per  cent,  of  those  claimed 
as  such  by  current  writers  were  really  of  Scotch  extraction.  And  these 
were  so  hopelessly  overwhelmed  in  numbers  by  other  Irish  who  came, 
that  any  attempt  to  claim  exclusive  merit  for  the  handful,  can  only 
result  in  mortification  to  the  claimant. 

The  Protestant  John  Mitchell  declares  that  "  Scotch-Irish  is  a  cant 
term  coined  by  bigots."  He  then  goes  on  to  state  that  in  Ireland  the 
term  was  seldom  or  never  heard. 

A  friend  of  mine,  an  Episcopalian,  once  said:  "  I  notice  that  so  long 
as  an  Irishman  goes  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  he  is  spoken  of  as 
Irish ;  but  should  he  change  his  creed  and  frequent  the  Baptist  or  the 
Methodist  Church  he  is  immediately  referred  to  by  his  new  friends  as 
'  Scotch-Irish.' "  This  is  a  fair  specimen  of  the  shaky  ground  on  which 
the  shibboleth  rests. 

Most  Rev.  Dr.  Plunkett,  Protestant  archbishop  of  Dublin,  speaking 
on  the  "  Scotch "  and  other  prefixes,  eloquently  disapproves  the  same 
and  warmly  declares  :  "  In  truth,  we  are  simply  Irish,  and  nothing  else." 

Thomas  Hamilton  Murray. 

This  letter  also  appeared  in  The  Pilot,  Boston,  in  the  issue  of  May  11. 
Following  is  a  reply  which  was  printed  in  The  Pilot  of  June  15. 

The  same  letter,  substantially,  had  appeared  in  the  Boston  Traveller  of 
May  3,  in  answer  to  Mr.  Murray's  letter  of  May  1. 

THE    "  SCOTCII-IRISH  "   AGAIN. 

Editor  of  The  Pilot : 

WoRCESTEH,  Mass.,  May  11,  1895. — A  marked  copy  of  The  Pilot  of 
to-day  has  been  sent  to  me,  calling  my  attention  to  a  communication  from 
Thomas  Hamilton  Murray,  in  which  Mr.  Murray  criticises  statements 
which  he  supposes  me  to  have  made  in  a  paper  which  I  read  before  the 
American  Antiquarian  Society  recently,  and  opinions  which  he  supposes 
me  to  hold.     He  is  laboring  under  misapprehensions  as  to  my  views. 

Will  you  kindly  allow  me  to  correct  some  of  these  mistakes?    They 


44 

arise  mainly  from  the  fact  that  Mr.  Murray  did  not  hear  the  paper  read 
and  has  not  liad  an  opportunity  to  read  it  himself. 

He  writes: — "Thousands  of  Protestant-Irish  are  of  English  descent, 
with  not  a  drop  of  Scotch  blood  in  their  veins.  Other  thousands  are  of 
Huguenot  extraction,  a  point  with  which  Mr.  Green  does  not  appear  to 
have  been  acquainted." 

In  my  paper  I  stated  that  "William  III.  exerted  himself  to  bring  colo- 
nies of  Huguenots  to  the  North  of  Ireland  after  the  revocation  of  the 
Edict  of  Nantes.  I  mentioned  also  English  colonists.  I  stated,  too, 
that  the  Irish  who  were  of  Scotch  blood  intermarried  with  those  of 
English-Puritan  and  Huguenot  blood  in  Ireland.  My  subject,  however, 
was  the  Irish  of  Scotch  blood. 

Mr.  Murray  says:  "Mr.  Green  seems  never  to  have  heard  of  either 
the  Anglo-Irish  or  the  Catholic-Irish  in  the  upbuilding  of  New  Eng- 
land." I  am  perfectly  aware  that  both  of  these  classes  of  Irishmen  have 
had  great  influence  here,  but,  as  stated  before,  I  limited  myself  in  the 
paper  to  the  influence  of  the  Irish  of  Scotch  descent. 

Mr.  Murray  says  :  "  The  Irish  immigrants  to  this  country  who  were 
actually  of  Scottish  ancestry  were  at  that  time  called,  and  were  content 
to  be  called,  merely  Irish." 

I  have  not  supposed  that  the  Irish  of  Scottish  blood  were  content  to 
be  called  "merely  Irish."  See,  for  example,  the  letter  of  Rev.  James 
McGregor,  of  Londonderry,  N.  H.,  to  Governor  Shute  of  Massachusetts, 
as  quoted  by  Jeremy  Belknap,  by  Parker  in  his  History  of  Londonderry, 
N.  H.  (p.  68),  and  Lincoln  in  his  History  of  Worcester,  Mass.  (p.  49.) 

"  Mr.  Green  makes  another  blunder,"  writes  Mr.  Murray,  "  in  regard- 
ing all  Ulster-men  as  of  Scotch  descent." 

I  hold  no  such  belief,  but  chose  to  single  out  the  inhabitants  of  Ulster 
of  Scotch  descent. 

By  reading  a  note  appended  to  the  names  of  General  John  Sullivan 
and  Govei'nor  James  Sullivan  in  my  paper,  Mr.  Murray  would  see  that  I 
agree  with  him  in  finding  no  reasons  for  believing  that  they  had  Scotch 
blood.  Am  I  wrong  in  believing  that  Miss  Sarah  Alexander,  of  Newry, 
Ireland,  who  married  the  father  of  Oliver  Hazard  Perry,  was  the  grand- 
daughter of  James  Wallace,  an  officer  of  the  Scotch  army  and  a  signer 
of  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  and  that  he  fled  in  1660  from 
County  Ayr  to  the  North  of  Ireland?  If  I  am,  I  should  be  grateful  to 
Mr.  Murray  if  he  would  correct  me. 

Mr.  Murray  says,  "Mr.  Green  would  have  us  understand  that  emigra- 
tion from  Scotland  to  Ireland  commenced  at  the  beginning  of  the  seven- 
teenth century."  I  would  not  have  anybody  so  understand,  but,  as  I 
stated  at  the  beginning  of  my  paper,  I  selected  for  treatment  the  emi- 
gration during  that  century. 

My  old  ^iend,  Rev.  Dr.  Hale,  expressed  himself  as  much  pleased  with 
my  paper,  and  would  be  very  much  surprised  to  learn  that  he  was  under- 
stood as  disputing  statements  made  by  me  because  a  jocose  remark 
occurred  to  him. 

Professor  Jameson,  whom,  with  Mr.  Murray,  I  regard  as  an  "  excellent 
historian,"  took  particular  pains  to  say,  at  the  meeting  where  my  paper 
was  read,  that  he  had  no  objections  to  make  to  any  statements  which  I 
had  made,  but  had  some  doubt  about  the  Scotch  descent  of  one  or  more 
of  the  persons  mentioned  in  a  quotation  which  I  had  made  from  the  his- 
tory of  Douglas  Campbell. 

Remarks  about  the  "  Irish  potato  "  were  made  by  me  in  a  letter  which 
I  sent  to  you  a  week  ago,  and  it  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  repeat  here 
what  you  already  have  in  that  letter. 

In  regard  to  my  sources  of  information,  which  Mr.  Murray  thinks 
were  "misleading,"  I  refer  him  to  a  somewhat  long  list  of  authorities 
given  at  the  close  of  my  paper. 


45 

I  do  not  imagine  that  Mr.  Murray  and  I  could  agree  entirely,  but  I  am 
sure  that  we  agree  more  nearly  than  he  has  supposed,  and  that  such  an 
approach  to  agreement  would  appear  if  he  were  to  read  my  paper.  I 
hope  that  it  will  be  printe  '  in  a  few  months;  and  when  it  is  printed,  he 
can  learn,  if  he  wishes,  exactly  what  I  have  written. 

Samuel  Swett  Green. 

The  letter  in  which  there  were  remarks  about  the  Irish  potato  was 
called  out  by  the  following  paragraph  in  The  Pilot  of  May  4  : 

There  is  something  appropriate  in  the  claim  made  by  Dr.  S.  S.  Green, 
of  Worcester,  before  the  American  Antiquarian  Society  of  Boston,  on 
April  24,  that  the  "  Irish  potato "  was  introduced  into  Worcester,  as 
WL'll  as  into  many  other  places  in  America,  by  the  "Scotch-Irish."  It 
was  just  like  the  enterprising  Scotch-Irishman  to  do  that.  He  is  the 
only  creature  in  the  whole  wide  realm  of  fiction  who  would  have 
thought  of  "introducing"  a  vegetable  to  the  land  of  its  birth.  Some- 
body with  time  on  his  handstand  a  landaliie  ambition  to  dispense  the 
information,  should  tell  the  American  Antiquarian  Society  that  the 
potato  is  iudiaenous  to  America,  and  that  the  name  "  Irish  potato"  is 
as  much  a  sham  and  a  misnomer  as  the  other  name,  "  Scotch-Irish," 
with  this  dlflerence,  that  the  vegetable  is  a  reial  potato  of  American 
origin,  while  the  human  hybrid  is  neither  Scotch  nor  Irish. 

Following  is  the  letter,  with  comments  as  it  appeared  in  The  Pilot  of 
May  18. 

THE  "hush"  potato. 
Editor  of  The  Pilot: 

Worcester,  Mass.,  May  4,  1895. — Will  you  kindly  allow  me  to  cor- 
rect a  mistake  which  was  made  by  the  writer  of  a  paragraph  in  to-day's 
issue  of  your  paper,  regarding  a  statement  recently  made  by  me  in  an 
essay  read  before  the  American  Antiquarian  Society  in  Boston. 

The  writer  does  not  understand  how  the  potato  could  have  been  intro- 
duced into  Worcotcr  and  other  places  in  this  neighborhood  dui'ing  the 
eighteenth  century  when  it  is  indigenous  to  America. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  it  is  indigenous  on  this  continent  and  no 
doubt  that  it  was  carried  from  this  country  to  Europe  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  It  is  also  true,  however,  that  it.  was  introduced  into  Worces- 
ter and  other  places  in  this  country  in  the  eighteenth  century  by 
emigrants  from  the  North  of  Ireland. 

About  200  persons,  who  were  a  portion  of  a  party  of  three  or  four 
times  that  number  which  arrived  in  Boston,  August  4,  1718,  went  to 
Worcester,  and  were  among  its  earlier  settlers. 

Most  of  this  body  of  emigrants  from  the  North  of  Ireland  were  of 
Scotch  extraction,  as  is  well  known.  A  few  of  them,  however,  were 
of  pure  Irish  blood.  Of  the  latter  was  a  family  of  Youngs  who  went 
to  Worcester.  They  are  credited  with  the  introduction  of  the  potato 
there.  The  people  of  Worcester  knew  little  or  nothing  about  that 
vegetable  before.  Their  ignorance  is  shown  by  an  anecdote  which 
has  come  down  to  us  and  which  is  narrated  in  Lincoln's  History  of 
Worcester. 

After  writing  that  "  it  is  remarkable  that  the  esculent,  now  considered 
essentially  necessary  for  table  and  farm  should  have  been  introduced  at 
a  period  so  late,"  Lincoln  continues:  "  It  is  related,  that  some  of  our 
early  inhabitants,  after  enjoying  the  hospitality  of  one  of  the  Irish 
famdies,  were  each  presented  with  a  few  potatoes  for  planting.  Unwill- 
ing to  give  offence  by  refusing  the  present,  thej'  accepted  the  donation; 
but  suspecting  the  poisonous  quality,  they  carried  the  roots  only  to  the 


46 

nest  swamp,   and  there  threw  them  away,  as  unsafe  to  enter  their 
homes."     (p.  49,  note  2.) 

Speaking  of  the  portion  of  the  emigrants  from  the  Nortli  of  Ireland 
who  came  over  in  1718  and,  with  others  of  their  countrymen  who  soon 
joined  them,  settled  at  Londonderry,  N.  H.,  Parker,  the  historian 
of  that  town,  writes:  "They  introduced  the  culture  of  the  potato, 
which  they  brought  with  them  from  Ireland.  Until  their  arrival,  this 
reliable  vegetable,  now  regarded  as  one  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  if  not 
wholly  unknown,  was  not  cultivated  in  New  England.  To  them  belongs 
the  credit  of  its  introduction  to  general  use.  Althongh  highly  prized 
by  this  company  of  settlers,  it  was  for  a  long  time  but  little  regarded  by 
their  English  neighbors,  a  barrel  or  two  being  considered  a  supply  for  a 
family.  But  its  value  as  food  for  man  and  for  beast  became  at  length 
more  generally  known,  and  who  can  now  estimate  the  full  advantage  of 
its  cultivation  to  this  country!  The  following  well-authenticated  fact 
will  show  how  little  known  to  the  community  at  large  the  potato  must 
have  been. 

A  few  of  the  settlers  had  passed  the  winter  previous  to  their  establish- 
ment here,  in  Andover,  Mass.  On  taking  their  departure  from  one  of 
the  families,  Avith  whom  they  had  resided,  they  left  a  few  potatoes  for 
seed.  The  potatoes  were  accordingly  planted;  some  came  up  and 
flourished  well;  blossomed  and  produced  balls,  which  the  family  sup- 
posed were  the  fruit  to  be  eaten.  They  cooked  the  balls  in  various 
ways,  but  could  not  make  them  palatable,  and  pronounced  them  unfit 
for  food.  The  next  spring,  while  ploughing  their  garden,  the  plough 
passed  through  where  the  potatoes  had  grown,  and  turned  out  some  of 
great  size,  by  which  means  they  discovered  their  mistake."  (pp.  48 
and  49.) 

It  appears  natural  after  this  statement  of  facts  that  the  potato  should 
have  been  very  generally  called  the  Irish  potato,  in  Worcester  and  else- 
where. 

I  remember  perfectly  that  in  my  boyhood,  fifty  years  ago,  and  after- 
wards when  we  had  two  kinds  of  potatoes  on  the  table,  in  my  father's 
family,  we  were  always  asked  whether  we  would  have  a  sweet  potato 
or  an  Irish  potato.     The  name  is  still  used  to  a  considerable  extent. 

Truly  yours, 

Samuel  Swett  Green. 

[We  make  room,  with  pleasure,  for  Mr.  Green's  letter.  It  was  only 
in  the  interest  of  historical  accuracy  that  we  deprecated  the  use  of  the 
term  "Irish  potato,"  as  that  esculent  is  a  peculiarly  American  product; 
and,  as  Mr.  Green  avows,  it  certainly  is  not  a  "  Scotch-Irish  "  vegetable. 
The  introduction  of  the  American  potato  into  Ireland  was,  unhappily,  a 
Nessus-gift.  The  fatal  facility  of  its  culture  led  the  people  to  place 
unwise  dependence  upon  it;  so  that  when  the  "blight"  of  1847  came, 
they  found  themselves  without  other  means  of  existence,  and,  as  a  con- 
sequence, 1,225,000  human  beings  died  of  the  "  Great  Famine"  of  that 
year.  It  was  a  sad  day  for  Ireland  when  it  first  knew  the  potato;  but 
if  America  has  profited  by  its  repatriation,  give  the  credit  to  Irish,  not 
Scotch,  Ireland. — Editor  Pilot. 

Mr.  Murray  continued  the  correspondence  by  sending  the  following 
letter  to  the  Worcester  Telegravi,  June  27,  1895. 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Telegram : 

Samuel  Swett  Green,  A.  M.,  of  Worcester,  a  short  time  ago  read  a 
paper  in  Boston  before  the  American  Antiquarian  Society.  His  subject 
was  the  Scotch-Irish,  so-called,  among  our  early  immigrants. 

I  took  exceptions  to  many  statements  by  Mr.  Green  as  they  were 
reported  in  the  Boston  journals  at  the  time,  several  days  having  elapsed 


47 

between  the  appearance  of  said  reports  and  the  publication  of  my 
criticism. 

As  Mr.  Green  had  not  questioned  the  general  accuracy  of  these  news- 
paper reviews  of  his  essay,  I  was  entirely  justified  in  malting  them  the 
basis  of  my  objections.  And  this  the  more  so,  from  the  fact  that  the 
different  papers— the  Globe,  Journal  and  others — practically  agreed  in 
their  statement  of  the  salient  points. 

Since  then  Mr.  Green  has  replied,  both  in  the  Boston  Traveller  and  the 
Boston  Pilot,  to  the  adverse  criticism  I  had  advanced.  I  wish  to  ac- 
knowledge at  the  outset  the  courteous  language  of  his  reply,  and  his 
frank,  honest  method  of  discussing  the  subject  with  me.  It  is  a  pleas- 
ure to  have  a  disputant  of  Mr.  Green's  ability,  character  and  good 
nature.  His  calm,  judicial  mind  is  not  Impervious  to  argument,  nor 
does  he  close  his  ears,  because  he  may,  perhaps,  hear  something  that 
runs  counter  to  previously  conceived  ideas. 

Mr.  Green  says:  "I  do  not  imagine  that  Mr.  Murray  and  I  coulct 
agree  entirely,  but  I  am  sure  that  we  agree  more  nearly  than  he  has  sup- 
posed, and  that  such  an  approach  to  agreement  would  appear  if  he  were 
to  read  my  paper." 

I  am  glad  Mr.  Green  displays  this  conciliatory  spirit  of  arbitration, 
for  it  goes  a  great  way  toward  a  satisfactory  discussion  of  the  subject. 

In  answer  to  my  criticisms  he  makes  several  important  admissions, 
viz. :  (1)  People  from  the  north  of  Ireland  are  not  necessarily  of  Scotch 
descent.  (2)  Thousands  of  north  of  Ireland  Protestants  and  thousands 
of  Protestants  from  other  parts  of  Ireland  have  come  to  this  country 
who  were  not  of  Scottish  ancestry.  (3)  The  term  Scotch-Irish  is  not 
equivalent  to  that  of  Protestant-Irish.  (4)  The  Catholic  Irish  have  had 
great  influence  here,  before,  during  and  since  the  revolution.  (5)  The 
Sullivans,  John  and  James,  were  not  of  Scottish  ancestry.  Several  other 
admissions  are  likewise  made  by  Mr.  Green,  all  of  which  bring  us  nearer 
together  in  point  of  general  agreement. 

Mr.  Green  says  in  explanation  of  his  paper  that  he  limited  himself  to 
"the  Irish  of  Scotch  descent." 

Ah  !  that  is  better.  So  long  as  he  strictly  adheres  to  it — not  claiming 
as  of  Scotch  descent  Irishmen  who  are  not — just  so  long  will  he  have 
no  contention.     Eather  do  I  praise  him  for  his  efforts  in  that  respect. 

Any  writer  who  honestly  aims  to  give  any  section  of  Irish  settler's  in 
this  country  a  deserved  meed  of  praise  shall  always  have  my  respect  and 
encouragement.  It  is  only  when  Irish  are  claimed  as  of  Scotch  descent 
who  are  not,  or  when  exclusive  merit  is  claimed  for  those  who  are,  I 
object.  In  this  respect  I  think  that  Mr.  Green  will  frankly  admit  that 
my  position  is  an  entirely  proper  one. 

No  man  of  sense  can  properly  object  to  the  term  "Irish  of  Scotch 
descent,"  when  rightly  used,  whereas  the  term  "  Scotch-Irish"  is  open 
to  very  grave  objections  from  many  points  of  view.  Mr.  Green  will,  I 
think,  recognize  the  point. 

We  of  the  old  Irish  race  draw  no  invidious  distinctions,  but  receive 
into  brotherhood  all  born  on  Irish  soil,  or  of  Irish  parents,  regardless  of 
creed  and  no  matter  where  their  grandfather  or  great-grandfather  may 
have  come  from. 

It  is  a  fact,  as  no  doubt-  Mr.  Green  is  aware,  that  thousands  of  north 
of  Ireland  Catholics  are  of  Scottish  descent  on  one  side  or  the  other.  It 
is  also  true  that  many  of  the  best  friends  of  Irish  nationality,  autonomy 
and  independence  have  been  of  the  same  element,  Protestant  and  Cath- 
olic. But  they  were  simply  "  Irish,"  look  you.  They  weighted  down 
their  birthright  with  no  extenuating  prefix  or  palliating  affix. 

It  is  a  blunder  to  suppose  that  all  the  Irish  settlers  in  New  Hampshire 
were  of  "  Scottish  descent."     Many  of  the  most  prominent  who  located 


48 

there  were  not.  Yet  because  some  were,  hasty  writers  have  jumped  to 
the  condusion  that  all  were  of  Scotch  ancestrj'.  A  more  lamentable 
error  it  would  be  difficult  to  fall  into. 

I  stated  in  my  first  reply  to  Mr.  Green  tiiat  the  early  Irish  immigrants 
to  this  country  who  were  actually  (and  not  by  recent  pretence)  of 
Scottish  ancestry  were  content  to  be  called  merely  Irish.  Mr.  Green 
appears  unwilling  to  admit  this  and  quotes  a  letter  of  Rev.  James 
McGregor,  of  Londonderry,  N.  H.,  to  Gov.  Shute,  of  Massachusetts. 
But  while  McGregor  may  have  been  unwilling  to  acl'inowledge  himself 
or  his  immediate  associates  as  pure,  unalloyed  Irish,  there  is  no  real 
evidence  that  the  bulk  of  New  Hampshire's  Irish  settlers  agreed  with 
him.  Lincoln,  the  Worcester  historian,  no  matter  how  excellently 
informed  in  other  respects,  cannot,  to  my  mind,  be  recognized  as  an 
authority  on  early  Irish  immigration.  And  this  comment  must  also  ap- 
,  ply  to  Dr.  Hale  and  Prof.  Jameson — both  of  whom  are  admirably  posted 
on  other  phases  of  New  England  history,  but  lamentably  deficient  in  this. 

Against  McGregor,  above  mentioned,  I  place  McSparran.  Parson 
McSparran,  I  need  not  tell  Mr.  Green,  was  an  Irish  Protestant  clergy- 
man who  for  nearly  forty  years  (from  1721)  was  rector  of  St.  Paul's 
Church  in  Narragansett.  Although  of  Scottish  ancestry  and  partly  edu- 
cated in  Scotland,  he  never  spoke  of  himself  as  "  Scotch-Irish."  Yet  if 
the  term  were  ever  justifiable,  it  would  have  been  so  in  his  case.  The 
expression  "  Scotch-Irish  "  never  occurs  in  McSparran's  writings.  He 
always  alludes  to  himself  as  "Irish,"  as  being  an  "Irishman,"  and  as 
able  to  speak,  read  and  write  "the  Irish  language."  He  was  proud  of 
his  Irish  nationality,  and  while  not  loving  the  land  of  his  ancestors  less, 
admired  that  of  his  nativity  more. 

McSparran  in  his  quaint  work,  American  Dissected,  thus  speaks  of 
early  New  Hampshire  settlers  : 

"  In  this  province  lies  that  town  called  London-Derry,  all  Irish,  and 
famed  for  industry  and  riches." 

Leaving  New  Hampshire,  he  continues  : 

"Next  you  enter  Main  (e),  which,  in  its  civil  government,  is  annexed 
to  the  Massachusetts,  as  Sagadahock  also  is,  and  both  rather  by  use  than 
right.  In  these  two  eastern  provinces  many  Irish  are  settled,  and  many 
have  been  ruined  by  the  French  Indians." 

No  mention  of  "Scotch-Irish,"  you  will  notice!  Yet  McSparran 
was  in  close  touch  with  his  countrymen  throughout  New  England. 
Again  he  writes : 

"It  is  pretty  true  to  observe  of  the  Irish,  that  those  who  come  here 
with  any  wealth  are  the  worse  for  their  removal,  though  doubtless  the 
next  generation  will  not  suffer  so  much  as  their  fathers;  but  those  who, 
Avheu  they  came,  had  nothing  to  lose,  have  throve  greatly  by  their 
labors." 

Again,  referring  to  Pennsylvania,  he  says  :  "  By  the  accessions  of  the 
Irish  and  Germans,  they  threaten,  in  a  few  years,  to  lessen  the  Ameri- 
can demands  for  Irish  and  other  European  linens." 

Speaking  of  Maryland,  McSparran  declares  "  There  are  some  Quakers 
here  *  *  *  ami  some  Irish  Presbyterians,  owing  to  the  swarms 
that,  for  many  years  past,  have  winged  their  way  westward  out  of  the 
great  Hibernian  hive." 

Referring  to  Pennsylvania,  he  writes:  "The  Irish  are  numerous  in 
this  province,  who,  besides  their  interspersions  among  the  English  and 
others,  have  peopled  a  whole  county  by  themselves,  called  the  county 
of  Donegal,  with  many  other  new  out-towns  and  districts." 

McSparran  gives  absolutely  no  indication  that  he  ever  heard  of  the 
"  Scotch-Irish"  term.  Certainly  he  never  used  it  personally.  His 
family,  education  and  good  sense  placed  him  above  such  a  cowardly 


49 

subterfuge.  A  short  time  before  liis  death  he  forwarded  his  diplomas 
of  master  and  doctor  to  a  cousin  in  Ireland,  requesting  that  they  be 
registered  in  the  parish  registry  of  Dungiven  "so  that  my  relatives  in 
time  to  come  might  be  able  to  speak  of  me  with  authority."  Thus  he 
marked  for  all  time  his  identity  as  an  Irishman. 

The  colonial  records  repeatedly  mention  the  "Irish,"  not  the  Scotch- 
Irish.  Cotton  Mather  in  a  sermon  in  1700  says:  "At  length  it  was 
proposed  that  a  colony  of  Irish  might  be  sent  over  to  check  the. growth 
of  this  countrey."  No  prefix  there.  The  party  of  immigrants  remaining 
at  Falmouth,  IVIe.,  over  winter,  and  which  later  settled  in  Londonderry, 
N.  H.,  were  alluded  to  in  the  records  of  the  general  court  as  "poor  Irish." 

On  St.  Patrick's  day,  1700,  Irish  of  Portsmouth,  N.  H.,  instituted 
St.  Patrick's  lodge  of  Masons.  Pretty  good  proof  that  they  were  con- 
tent to  be  called  merely  "  Irish."  Later  we  tind  Stark's  rangers  at  Fort 
Edward  requesting  an  extra  supply  of  grog  so  as  to  properly  observe 
the  anniversary  of  St.  Patrick.  Very  little  comfort  here  for  your 
"Scotch-Irish"  theorist. 

Rev.  John  Moorhead,  a  Presbyterian  minister  of  Boston,  was  born  in 
the  north  of  Ireland  and  received  much  of  his  education  in  Scotland. 
Yet  he  wished  to  be  regarded  as  mere  "Irish."  In  proof  of  this  he 
joined  the  Charitable  Irish  Society  of  Boston  in  1730,  and  made  an  ad- 
dress on  that  occasion.  Only  men  of  Irish  birth  or  exti-action  could  be 
admitted  to  actual  membership  in  the  society  then  as  now.  Mr.  Moor- 
head in  being  thus  admitted  so  acknowledged  himself.  His  congregation 
is  described  by  Drake,  Condon,  CuUen  and  other  authorities,  as  being 
composed  of  "  Irish  Presbyterians." 

No  mention  whatever  is  made  of  any  "  Scotch-Irish  "  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. 

Marmion's  maritime  ports  of  Ireland  states  that  "Irish  families" 
settled  Londonderry,  N.  H.  Spencer  declares  that  "the  manufacture 
of  linen  was  considerably  increased  by  the  coming  of  Irish  immigrants." 
In  1723,  says  Condon,  "a  colony  of  Irish  settled  in  Maine."  Mooi-e,  in 
his  sketch  of  Concord,  N.  H.,  pays  tribute  to  the  "Irish  settlers"  in 
that  section  of  New  England.  McGee  speaks  of  "  the  Irish  settlement 
of  Belfast,"  Me.  The  same  author  likewise  declares  that  "  Irish  families 
also  settled  early  at  Palmer  and  Worcester,  Mass."  Cullen  describes 
the  arrival  at  Boston  in  1717  of  Capt.  Robert  Temple,  "  with  a  number 
of  Irish  Protestants."  Capt.  Temple  was,  in  1740,  elected  to  the  Chari- 
table Irish  Society.  In  another  place  Cullen  alludes  to  "the  Irish 
spinners  and  weavers  who  landed  in  Boston  in  the  earlier  part  of  the 
18th  century." 

Many  persons  who  continually  sing  the  praises  of  the  so-called 
"  Scotch-Irish  "  stand  in  serious  danger  of  being  considered  not  only 
Ignorant  but  positively  dishonest.  Their  practice  is  to  select  any  or  all 
Irishmen  who  have  attained  eminence  in  American  public  life,  lump 
them  together  and  label  the  lump  "  Scotch-Irish." 

Among  those  who  have  been  thus  wrongly  claimed  are  Carroll,  Sulli- 
van, Knox,  Moylan,  Wayne,  Barry,  Clinton,  Montgomery,  Elliott,  Hand 
and  a  host  of  others.  Of  a  later  period,  Jackson,  Calhoun,  Meade  and 
Sheridan  have  been  ridiculously  styled  "  Scotch-Irish."  The  late  John 
Boyle  O'Reilly  has  not  yet  been  so  styled,  but  no  doubt  will  be  after  he 
has  been  dead  long  enough  to  make  it  comparatively  safe. 

Of  the  revolutionary  heroes  mentioned  above,  Charles  Carroll  was  of 
old  Irish  stock.  His  cousin,  John  Carroll,  was  a  Roman  Catholic  clergy- 
man, a  Jesuit,  a  patriot,  a  bishop  and  archbishop.  Daniel  Carroll  was 
another  sterling  patriot. 

The  SuUivans,  James  and  John,  were  also  of  ancient  Irish  stock,  the 
name  having  been  O'Sullivan  even  in  their  father's  time. 
4 


50 

Gen.  Knox  and  his  father  were  both  members  of  the  Charitable  Irish 
Society  of  Boston.  The  general  also  belonged  to  the  Friendly  Sons  of 
St.  Patrick,  Philadelphia. 

Moylan  was  a  brother  of  the  Roman  Catholic  bishop  of  Cork.  Quickly 
would  he  have  repudiated  the  term  "  Scotch-Irish." 

Wayne  was  of  Irish  descent  and  proud  of  his  Irish  lineage.  There  is 
abundant  evidence  of  this  did  space  allow  me  to  present  it.  He  was  an 
active  member  of  the  Friendly  Sons  of  St.  Patrick. 

Barry  was  an  Irish  Roman  Catholic.  It  was  he  who,  when  met  by  an 
English  frigate  on  the  high  seas,  replied  to  the  commander's  demand  as 
to  who  he  was,  with  "The  United  States  ship  Alliance,  saucy  Jack 
Barry,  half  Irishman,  half  Yankee — Who  are  you?" 

The  Clintons,  George  and  James,  were  sons  of  a  county  Longford 
Irishman,  who  with  a  large  family  immigrated  from  Ireland  in  172'J. 

Montgomery  was  an  Irishman  by  birth  and  patriotism,  and  a  native 
of  county  Donegal.     His  father  was  a  member  of  the  Irish  parliament. 

Brig. -Gen.  Elliott  was  a  member  of  the  Charitable  Irish  Society  of 
Boston,  and  at  one  time  its  president. 

Hand  was  a  native  of  Kings  county,  Ireland,  and  served  in  France 
with  the  Irish  brigade.  During  our  revolution  he  attained  the  rank  of 
brigadier-general,  and  was  a  great  favorite  with  Washington. 

All  the  foregoing  would  have  laughed  had  any  attempt  been  made  in 
their  lifetime  to  tag  them  "  Scotch-Irish." 

Mr.  Green  asks  :  "Am  I  wrong  in  believing  that  Miss  Sarah  Alexan- 
der of  Newry,  Ireland,  who  married  the  father  of  Oliver  Hazard  Perry, 
was  the  grandaughter  of  James  Wallace,  an  officer  in  the  Scotch  army 
and  a  signer  of  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  and  that  he  fled  in 
1660  from  county  Ayr  to  the  north  of  Ii-eland?  If  I  am,  should  be 
gratified  to  Mr.  Murray  if  he  would  correct  me." 

No  general  correction  is  necessary.  Miss  Alexander's  grandfather, 
at  least  on  the  paternal  side,  was  Scotch.  But  what  of  it?  Sarah,  his 
grandaughter,  was  an  Irish  woman — Irish  by  birth,  education,  sympathy 
and  association.  Would  Mr.  Green  consider  himself  the  less  an  Ameri- 
can because  his  grandfather  happened  to  be  English  or  Irish  or  Scotch? 
Certainly  not!  He  cannot,  therefore,  apply  the  law  of  nationality  in 
his  own  case  and  refuse  its  application  in  that  of  Sarah  Alexander.  A 
man  of  his  clear  sense  and  logical  mind  will  not,  I  am  sure,  after  think- 
ing it  over,  have  any  desire  to  do  so. 

Prejudiced  or  poorly  informed  writers  have  made  sad  work  of  this 
"  Scotch-Irish  "  business.  Thus  Henry  Cabot  Lodge  gives  the  absurd 
definition  of  "Scotch-Irish"  as  being  "Protestant  in  religion  and 
chiefly  Scotch  and  English  in  blood."  This  has  only  been  equalled  in 
absurdity  by  Dr.  Mcintosh,  who  defined  this  elusive  element  as  "  not 
Scotch  nor  Irish,  but  rather  British."  Here  we  have  two  gentlemen 
claiming  to  speak  as  with  authority,  yet  unable  to  agree  even  in  first 
essentials.     What  an  excellent  farce,  indeed,  is  all  this. 

Probably  no  man  in  recent  years  has  done  more  to  shatter  the  "Scotch- 
Irish"  fallacy  than  Hon.  John  C.  Linehan,  the  present  state  insurance 
commissioner  of  New  Hampshire.  His  vast  researches  and  able  articles 
relative  to  the  early  settlers  justly  entitle  him  to  be  considered  the  his- 
torian of  the  Irish  in  the  Granite  state.  His  recent  contributions  on 
"How  the  Irish  came  as  builders  of  the  nation"  contain  amass  of 
priceless  information  regarding  the  Irish  pioneers  in  Londonderry, 
Antrim,  Dublin  and  other  New  Hampshire  places. 

Returning  to  the  Charitable  Irish  Society,  it  should  be  stated  that  all 
the  founders  were  Protestants — chiefly  Presbyterians.  Some  of  them 
were  from  the  North  of  Ireland  and  may  have  had  Scottish  forefathers. 
But  whether  they  had  or  not,  all  wished  to  be  considered  as  simply 


51 

"Irish."  Had  they  desired  to  be  considered  "Scotch  rather  than 
Irish,"  they  would  have  joined  the  Scotcli  Charitable  Society— wliich 
was  already  in  existence  in  Boston.  But  no!  They  wanted  a  distinc- 
tively Irish  organization,  and  consequently  founded  one  on  St.  Patricli's 
day,  1737.  You  will  particularly  note  that  they  named  it  the  Charitable 
Irish  Society  and  not  the  Charitable  Scotch-Irish  Society.  Indeed,  they 
make  no  use  at  any  time  of  the  latter  hyphenated  expression. 

We  admire  the  upright,  sturdy  Irishman;  we  have  respect  for  the 
genuine  Scotchman.  But  for  the  man  who  through  ignorance  or  asso- 
ciation is  ashamed  of  his  native  land,  and  who  represents  himself  as 
something  he  is  not,  we  have  only  pity  and  contempt  in  about  equal 
parts.  The  most  sincere  Orangeman  I  ever  knew  never  dreamt  of 
denying  that  he  was  an  Irishman.  With  the  mass  of  his  countrymen  he 
did  not  agree  in  religion  or  politics.  But  he  knew,  as  they  did,  that 
these  matters  were  separate,  apart  and  distinct  from  his  nativity  or 
nationality. 

But  enough !  Truth  only  is  permanent.  False  assumptions,  mistaken 
theories  or  deliberate  misrepresentation  may  create  for  a  time  a  certain 
impression.  In  the  end,  however,  cold,  stern,  unrelenting  fact  will 
always  prevail. 

Thomas  Hamilton  Murray. 

Lawrence,  Mass.,  June  26,  1895. 

The  foregoing  letter  also  appeared  in  the  Boston  Herald  of  June  28. 
The  following  reply  was  printed  in  the  Worcester  Daily  Telegram  of 
June  28.  It  was  cut  out  from  a  copy  of  the  Telegram  and  sent  to  the 
Boston  Herald,  but  was  not  printed  by  that  paper. 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Telegram  :— 

A  very  courteous  letter  appeared  in  this  morning's  Telegram  from 
Thomas  Hamilton  Murray  of  Lawrence,  in  continuance  of  a  corre- 
spondence regarding  statements  made  by  me  in  a  paper  read  at  the 
semi-annual  meeting  of  the  American  Antiquarian  Society,  held  in 
Boston  the  24th  of  April  last.  Please  allow  me  to  say  a  few  words  in 
reply. 

As  no  part  of  the  correspondence  has  appeared  in  a  Worcester  paper, 
in  so  far  as  I  know,  I  can  best  introduce  the  whole  subject  by  askiug 
you  to  print  the  following  letter,  which  appeared  in  the  Boston  Pilot, 
June  15,  in  answer  to  a  letter  which  was  printed  in  the  Pilot  of  May  11, 
and  which  had  appeared  before  in  the  Boston  Traveller  of  May  1.  A 
reply  from  me  appeared  in  the  Traveller  May  3.  The  reply  in  the  Pilot, 
although  written  May  11,  was  delayed  in  its  appearance  until  June  15. 

Here  followed  Mr.  Green's  first  reply  to  Mr.  Murray.  The  second 
letter  went  on  as  follows  : 

It  appears  from  this  letter  that  what  Mr.  Murray  calls  "  admissions  " 
were  denials  that  I  had  made  certain  statements  and  held  views  which 
he  supposed  me  to  hold.*  Mr.  Murray  gives  reasons  and  extracts  to 
show  that  the  Irish  of  Scotch  descent  who  came  here  in  the  17th 
century  were  content  to  be  called  "  merely  Irish." 

Now,  I  have  no  doubt  that  to  a  very  considerable  extent  they  asso- 
ciated with  other  Irishmen,  and  especially  with  Presbyterians  from  the 
North  of  Ireland,  not  of  Scotch  extraction,  and  I  know  that  the  name 
Irish  was  frequently  applied  to  men  of  Scotch  blood  who  had  lived  in 


*  A  misprint.  I  wrote  "  denials  that  I  had  made  certain  statements  which 
he  had  supposed  me  to  make  and  that  I  held  views  which  he  had  supposed  me 
to  hold." 


52 

Ireland.*  iBut  there  was  strong  feeling,  too,  between  many  of  the 
Catholic  and  Protestant  Irish,  which  began  when  the  Scotch  went  to 
the  North  of  Ireland  in  large  numbers  in  the  earlier  parts  of  the  17th 
century)  and*  which  was  intensified  by  the  troubles  in  1688  between 
James  II.  and  William  III.  There  was  a  prejudice  in  this  country,  too, 
regarding  the  Irish. 

It  is  believed  in  Worcester  that  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  settlers 
from  the  North  of  Ireland  who  came  here  in  1718  were  cruelly  treated, 
was  that  they  were  victims  of  that  prejudice.  Rev.  Mr.  McGregor's 
letter  probably  represented  the  views  of  many  emigrants  from  the 
North  of  Ireland,  on  being  termed  "  merely  Irish." 

Last  May  I  received  a  letter  from  Hon.  Leonard  A.  Morrison  of 
Cauobie  Lake,  N.  H.,  in  which  he  wrote:  "I  am  one  of  Scotch-Irish 
blood,  and  my  ancestors  came  with  Hev.  Mr.  McGregor  of  Londonderry, 
and  neither  they  nor  any  of  their  descendants  were  willing  to  be  called 
'  merely  Irish.'  I  have  twice  visited  the  parish  of  Aghedovvary,"*  county 
Londonderry,  from  which  they  came  in  Ireland,  and  all  that  locality  is 
filled,  not  with  Irish,  but  with  Scotch-Irish,  and  this  is  pure  Scotch 
blood  to-day,  after  more  than  200  years.  I  can  show  you  families  here 
of  as  pure  Scotch  blood  as  you  can  find  in  the  lowlands  of  Scotland, 
where  there  has  never  been  a  marriage  with  any  but  those  of  Scotch 
blood." 

Mr.  Morrison  is  the  author  of  the  History  of  Windham  and  several 
other  books  in  which  he  has  to  deal  largely  with  Irish  of  Scotch  descent. 
I  am  not  writing  in  a  polemical  spirit,  but  simply  as  a  student  of  history, 
and  it  seems  to  me  as  such  that  a  large  portion  of  the  emigrants  from 
the  North  of  Ireland  in  the  17th  century  were  as  proud  of  their  Scottish 
descent  as  emigrants  from  Ireland  of  the  last  50  years  are  proud  of 
their  Irish  descent. 

I  do  not  understand  why  the  late  William  Lincoln  should  not  be 
trusted  when  he  writes  about  the  earlier  settlers  in  Worcester  from 
the  North  of  Ireland.  About  200  of  the  immigrants  who  reached 
Boston  in  August,  1718,  from  the  North  of  Ireland  came  to  Worcester. 
That  number  was  as  great  probably  as  the  population  found  here  when 
they  came.  The  new  comers  were,  therefore,  an  important  portion  of 
the  population  of  Worcester,  whose  history  Mr.  Lincoln  wrote  in  such 
manner  that  his  work  holds  a  high  place  among  town  histories.  He 
spoke  of  the  colony  of  persons  who  came  here  in  1718  from  the  North 
of  Ireland  as  "  Scots."  It  seems  to  me  that  Jeremy  Belknap,  Rev.  Mr. 
McGregor,  and  Messrs.  Morrison  and  Lincoln  may  be  trusted  in  regard 
to  representations  made  by  them  respecting  bodies  of  men  among  whose 
descendants  they  were  living  and  about  whom  they  had  prepared  them- 
selves to  write. 

In  regard  to  the  use  of  the  term  Scotch-Irish,  I  did  not  realize  that  I 
should  give  offence  by  employing  it,  and  I  probably  should  have  used 
some  other  designation  to  convey  my  meaning  rather  than  irritate  bodies 
of  men  whom  I  respect.  I  used  the  word,  however,  only  in  a  descrip- 
tive sense,  just  as  I  sometimes  use  the  terms  Afro-American  and  Swed- 
ish-American. I  entirely  agree  with  Mr.  Murray  that,  generally  speak- 
ing, it  is  best  not  to  use  words  which  show  the  diflerences  of  the 
inhabitants  of  a  country  rather  than  the  things  which  they  hold  in  com- 
mon. For  example,  it  is  better  to  speak  generally  of  Americans,  rather 
than  Irish-Americans  or  French-Americans. 

Still  men  must  make  themselves  understood  in  writing,  and  it  is  some- 
times very  convenient  for  purposes  of  description  to  place  an  adjective 
indicative  of  blood  before  the  name  denoting  nationality.     Thus,  upon 


*  Misprint  for  Aghadowey. 


53 

taking  up  a  newspaper  this  morning,  which  recognizes  in  the  highest 
degree  the  services  of  our  fellow  citizens  of  Irish  blood,  I  fonnd  it 
speaking  for  descriptive  purposes  of  "  Irish-Americans."  .         , 

Mr.  Murray  asks  :  "  Would  Mr.  Green  consider  himself  less  an  Amer- 
ican because  his  grandfather  hai)pened  to  be  English  or  Irish  o'r  Scotch?" 
"Certainly  not,"  *  is  his  answer.  Still  if  one  of  my  grandfathers  had  been 
a  Scotchman  I  do  not  think  that  I  should  be  troubled,  if  I  showed  Scotch 
characteristics,  should  my  acquaintances  speak  of  me  as  a  Scotch-Amer- 
ican. It  so  happens  that  one  of  my  grandmothers,  Nancy  Barber,  was 
a  descendant  of  one  of  the  early  settlers  in  Worcester  of  Scotch  extrac- 
tion. I  have  so  little  of  her  blood  in  my  veins,  however,  that  I  suppose 
that  nobody  would  think  of  calling  me  either  an  Irishman  or  Scotchman 
or  Scotclj-American.  I  think  that  I  should  preserve  my  equanimity 
were  either  of  the  three  designations  applied  to  me. 

Mr.  Murray  speaks  of  the  inconsistent  definitions  which  are  given  by 
authors  to  the  term  Scotch-Irish.  In  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  gave 
my  own  definition  on  the  first  page  of  my  paper,  as  follows :  "The 
Scotch-Irish,  as  I  understand  the  meaning  of  the  term,  are  Scotchmen 
who  emigrated  to  Ireland  and  such  descendants  of  those  emigrants  as 
had  not,  through  intermarriage  with  the  Irish  proper,  or  others,  lost 
their  Scotch  characteristics.  Both  emigrants  and  their  descendants,  if 
they  remained  long  in  Ireland,  experienced  certain  changes,  apart  from 
those  which  are  brought  about  by  mixture  of  blood,  through  the  influ- 
ence of  new  surroundings." 

Mr.  Murray  speaks  of  the  mistakes  which  have  been  made  in  ascrib- 
ing Scotch  blood  to  distinguished  Irishmen.  Of  the  persons  named  by 
liim  I  have  not  claimed  Scotch  extraction  for  Carroll,  Sullivan,  Moylan, 
Wayne,  Barry,  Elliott,  Hand,  Meade  or  Sheridan.  Nor  do  I  expect  to 
claim  it  for  my  friend,  the  late  John  Boyle  O'Reilly,  nor  for  my  corres- 
pondent, and  I  think  I  may  add,  my  friend,  Mr.  Murray,  for  either  he  or 
a  predecessor  on  the  Lawrence  American  has  praised  highly  my  methods 
of  library  management,  still  I  must  add  that  the  Christian  name  "  Ham- 
ilton "  is  a  little  suspicious.  It  has  a  Scotch  look,  and  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  my  friend  may  be  related  to  Lord  Dufferin,  the  descendant  of 
the  Nobleman  Hamilton,  who  led  a  colony  of  Scotchmen  into  Ireland  in 
James  the  first's  time. 

In  regard  to  Knox,  Clinton,  Montgomery,  Jackson  and  Calhoun,  I 
must  ask  Mr.  Murray  to  consider  the  testimony  brought  forward  in  the 
notes  to  my  paper.  Mr.  Murray  will  be  glad  to  hear  that  I  have  referred 
to  some  of  Mr.  Linehan's  writings  in  the  list  of  sources  of  information 
at  the  end  of  my  paper. f  I  will  try  to  add,  if  not  too  late.  Parson 
McSparran's  work. J 

I  do  not  find  it  easy  to  reconcile  Mr.  Murray's  statements  regarding 
Rev.  Dr.  Hale  and  Prof.  Jameson.  In  his  letter  in  the  Traveller  and  Pilot, 
in  speaking  of  me  as  "  lacking  the  essential  basic  knowledge"  and  so  as 


*  I  inserted  the  word  "  as"  before  "  is."  The  omission  in  printing  led  Mr. 
Murray,  it  will  be  seen,  to  suppose  that  I  had  avoided  a  direct  answer  to  a  ques- 
tion which  he  asked. 

t  Honorable  John  C.  Linehan,  Insurance  Commissioner  of  the  State  of  New 
Hampshire,  has  written  several  papers  on  the  Scotch-Irish.  He  is  of  Irish 
blood  and  objects  strenuously  to  the  use  of  the  term  "  Scotch-Irish,"  I  wrote 
to  him  for  a  list  of  his  writings  in  order  that  I  might  priat  it  here.  He  could 
not  give  me  one,  but  wrote  that  he  expects  to  make  a  collection,  in  pamphlet 
form,  of  his  papers,  on  the  general  subject  under  consideration  and  have  it 
printed  the  coming  autumn  (1895). 

J  For  a  reprint  of  America  Dissected,  by  Rev.  J.  McSparran,  I).  D.,  see  an 
appendix  to  History  of  the  Episcopal  Church  in  Narragansett,  Rhode  Island, 
by  Wilkius  Updike.    New  York,  18i7. 
*4 


54 

having  "  made  a  hodge-podge  of  the  subject  treated  in  endeavoring  to 
prove  too  much,"  he  wrote  :  "  This  idea  also  seems  to  have  struck  Dr. 
Hale  at  the  meeting  in  question.  *  *  The  absurdity  of  some  of  the 
speaker's  claims  was  also  aoted  at  the  meeting  by  that  excellent  histo- 
rian, Prof.  Jameson  of  Brown  University."  In  the  letter  in  this  morn- 
ing's Telegram  Mr.  Murray,  after  saying  that  Lincoln  cannot  be  "  recog- 
nized as  an  authority  on  early  Irish  immigration,"  goes  on  to  say : 
"And  this  comment  must  also  apply  to  Dr.  Hale  and  Prof.  Jameson,  both 
of  whom  are  admirably  posted  on  other  phases  of  New  England  history, 
but  lamentably  deficient  in  this."  Why  the  change  in  the  e.'^timate  of 
these  two  men  ?  Is  it  because  they  supported  me  in  my  views  instead 
of  opposing  me  ? 

Dr.  Hale  has  wide  interests  and,  I  presume,  knows  much  about  Ireland 
and  Scotland,  and  the  Scotch  wiio  settled  in  Ireland.  Prof.  Jameson 
intimated  at  the  meetins  of  the  American  Antiquarian  Society  at  which 
ray  paper  was  read,  that  he  was  descended  from  an  Irishman  of  Scotch 
extraction.  He  seemed,  too,  to  be  interested  in  the  subject  of  my  paper, 
and  to  have  knowledge  regarding  it. 

Yours  truly, 

Samuel  Swett  Green. 

Mr.  Murray  wrote  again  to  the  Worcester  Daily  Telegram.  This  letter 
was  in  the  paper  of  July  8. 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Telegram  :— 

Samuel  Swett  Green  in  your  issue  of  the  28th  ult.,  replies  to  my 
communication  of  a  day  or  two  previous  anent  the  "Scotch-Irish,"  so 
called. 

I  take  exceptions  to  certain  points  advanced  by  him  in  his  latest  con- 
tribution, as  I  have  to  others  which  he  had  previously  brought  forward. 

Still,  there  is  so  much  in  his  present  reply  in  the  nature  of  concession 
to  my  position,  that  our  bone  of  contention  is  being  rapidly  reduced  to 
a  minimum.  This  is  practically  the  outcome  Mr.  Green  indicated  would 
result  as  soon  as  we  got  together  and  compared  views  and  notes.  In 
his  latest  reply  Mr.  Green  thus  manfully  writes  : — 

"  In  regard  to  the  use  of  the  term  Scotch-Irish,  I  did  not  realize  that 
I  should  give  offence  by  employing  it,  and  I  probably  should  have  used 
some  other  designation  to  convey  my  meaning  rather  than  irritate 
bodies  of  men  whom  I  respect.  I  used  the  word,  however,  only  in  a 
descriptive  sense,  just  as  I  sometimes  use  the  terms  Afro-American  and 
Swedish-American.  I  entirely  agree  with  Mr.  Murray  that,  generally 
speaking,  it  is  best  not  to  use  words  which  show  the  differences  of  the 
inhabitants  of  a  country  rather  than  the  things  which  they  hold  in  com- 
mon. For  example,  it  is  better  to  speak  generally  of  Americans,  rather 
than  Irish-Americans  or  French-Americans." 

After  this  candid  admission  very  little  remains  to  be  said.  So  much 
of  what  I  have  been  contending  for  is  comprised  in  it  that  a  vast 
amount  of  debris  has  been  cleared  away,  thus  enabling  us  to  survey  the 
field  to  better  advantage. 

The  ten'dency  nowadays  among  Americans  of  Irish  extraction,  is  to 
drop  the  prefix  Irish,  and  it  is  well  that  this  is  so.  No  more  patriotic 
Americans  can  be  found  than  those  of  immediate  or  remote  Irish 
descent.  And  this  has  been  so  from  the  beginning.  Ten  years  ago  I 
wrote  in  the  Boston  Globe  on  the  staff  of  which  I  was  at  the  lime,  that 
it  was  in  bad  taste  to  insist  on  hampering  an  American  on  every  possi- 
ble occasion,  with  the  prefix  "Irish"  or  "German"  or  "French"  or 
"  Scotch."  With  as  much  or  as  little  sense  might  the  late  Robert  C. 
Winthrop  be  spoken  of  as  an  "  English-American,"  or  the  Knickerbocker 
element  in  New  York  continue  to  be  labelled  "  Dutch- Americans." 


55 

But  the  principle  heroin  fnntaiiicd  is  not  of  recent  conception.  The 
bullv  of  the  most  profjre.st.ive  aud  highly  educated  people  in  Ireland  of 
Scottish  descent,  have  for  centuries  held  lilie  sentiments.  In  their 
own  estimation  they  were  "  Irish"  and  wished  to  he  so  regarded.  The 
evidence  on  this  point  is  so  overwhelmingly  abundant  that  it  seems  a 
waste  of  time  to  dwell  upon  it.  A  few  there  were,  no  doubt,  who  were 
ashamed  of  tlieir  Irish  nationality  just  as  we  liave  in  our  country  to-day 
a  certain  class  of  wretched  Anglo-maniacs  who,  despising  their  birth- 
right, can  admire  nothing  save  what  is  English. 

Tliese  patriotic  Irish  of  Scotch  descent,  mentioned  above,  objected  to 
being  loaded  doAvn  with  a  foreign  prefix  on  the  same  principle  that  we 
Americans  object  to  similar  hyphenated  terms.  And  they  were  right  as 
we  are  fight.  What  then  must  be  thought  of  people  to-day  in  this 
country  who  persistently  label  themselves  Scotch-Irish  or  Scotch-Irish- 
Americans?     Very  little  that  is  complimentary,  I  am  sure. 

Mr.  Green  quotes  Hon.  Leonard  A.  Morrison  of  Canobie  Lake,  N.  H., 
who  boasts  that  even  after  200  years  residence  in  Ireland  his  family 
still  remained  aliens.  I  pity  the  man  who  would  make  such  a  boast. 
At  the  same  time,  I  can  hardly  suppress  a  smile  at  Mr.  Morrison's  break- 
neck anxiety  to  get  away  from  the  awful  suspicion  that  he  may  be  con- 
sidered "merely  Irish."  But  he  is  handicapped  at  the  outset.  His 
name — Morrisoq^— is  deplorably  Irish.  In  fact,  few  names  can  trace  a 
longer  pure  Irish  pedigree  than  his.  The  Morrison  families,  too,  were 
proud  ones  among  the  old  Irish  nobility.  The  stem  goes  back  to  a 
period  anterior  even  to  the  Irish  colonization  of  Scotland.  If  Mr. 
Morrison  wants  pedigree  and  ancestral  glory  he  will  stick  to  Ireland. 
Still  there  is  no  accounting  for  tastes,  and  if  he  wishes  to  cut  loose 
from  the  ancient  Irish  stock,  we,  who  glory  in  that  stock,  will  make  no 
effort  to  detain  him. 

Hon.  John  C.  Linehan,  the  historian  of  the  Irish  in  New  Hampshire, 
and  now  Insurance  Commissioner  of  the  State,  thus  writes: — 

"  In  these  latter  days  a  new  school  of  writer's  has  sprung  up,  whose 
pride  of  ancestry  outstrips  their  knowledge,  and  whose  prejudices 
blind  their  love  of  truth.  With  the  difference  in  religion  between  cer- 
tain sections  of  the  Irish  people  as  a  basis,  they  are  bent  in  creating  a 
a  new  race,  christening  it  '  Scotch-Irish,'  labormg  hard  to  prove  that  it 
is  a  '  brand  '  superior  to  either  of  the  two  old  types,  and  while  clinging 
to  the  Scotch  root,  claim  that  their  ancestors  were  different  from  the 
Irish  in  blood,  morals,  language  and  religion.  This  is  a  question  not 
difficult  to  settle  for  those  who  are  disposed  to  treat  it  honestly,  but,  as 
a  rule,  the  writers  who  are  the  most  prolific,  as  well  as  the  speakers  who 
are  the  most  eloquent,  know  the  least  about  the  suljject,  and  care  less, 
if  they  can  only  succeed  in  having  their  theories  accepted.  The  Irish 
origin  of  the  Scots  is  studiously  avoided  by  nearly  all  the  Scotch-Irish 
writers,  or  if  mentioned  at  all,  is  spoken  of  in  a  manner  which  leaves 
the  reader  to  infer  that  the  Scots  had  made  a  mistake  in  selecting  their 
ancestors,  and  it  was  the  duty  of  their  descendants,  so  far  as  it  lay  in 
their  power,  to  rectify  the  error. 

What  a  vast  difference  there  is  between  the  contracted  spirit  shown 
by  Mr.  Morrison,  and  the  love  for  Ireland  and  the  Irish  which  the 
great,  big  hearted  Dr.  McSparran  displayed.  What  a  difference,  too, 
betw^een  Mr.  Morrison,  who  tries  to  avoid  kindred  with  the  pure,  unal- 
loyed Irish,  and  Gen.  John  McNeil,  another  descendant  of  a  London- 
derry settler,  who  in  1830,  joined  the  Charitable  Irish  Society,  thus 
wishing  to  identify  himself  with  the  Sons  of  Hibernia. 

In  my  previous  letter  to  The  Telegram  alluding  to  Parson  McSpar- 
ran's  work,  the  types  made  me  say  'Americans  Dissected,"  it  should 
be  "  America  Dissected."    Also  when  referring  to  St.  Patrick's  lodge 


56 

of  Masons,  the  date  should  have  been  1770  and  not  1700,  as  it  appeared 
in  print. 

Commissioner  Linehan  says  in  spealiing  of  the  Irish  arrivals  in 
Worcester:  "Rev.  Edward  Fitzgerald  (a  Scotch  name  in  no  sense 
whatever)  was  the  first  pastor  of  the  Presbyterian  clmrch  in  Worces- 
ter, in  1718.  His  congregation  had  rather  a  sorry  time  of  it  trying  to 
establisli  themselves  in  the  Heart  of  the  Commonwealth.  The  margin 
between  the  Congregational  and  Presbyterian  churches  was  narrow, 
but  the  former  widened  it  by  tearing  down  the  church  of  the  new- 
comers, not  leaving  the  timber,  even,  on  the  ground.  .  .  John  Young 
came  to  Worcester  in  1718,  from  Ireland,  with  his  family.  The  town 
historian,  Lincoln,  wrote  that  the  '  Scotch-Irish  '  were  accompanied  by 
a  few  of  ihe  native  Irish,  and  mentions  Young  as  one  of  them;  and  that 
he  was  the  first  man  to  introduce  the  cultivation  of  the  potato  in 
Worcester.  Here  is  a  concession  the  mere  Irish  ought  to  be  thankful  for 
— that  there  were  even  a  few  came;  but  it  certainly  is  queer  that  their 
Boston  brethren  persisted  in  calling  themselves  Irish,  notwithstanding 
they  were  as  Protestant  as  the  Worcester  or  New  Hampshire  people  of 
the  same  period." 

Why  anybody  of  Irish  birth  or  descent  should  try  to  sink  his  glorious 
heritage  and  seek  to  establish  himself  as  "  Scotch  rather  than  Irish,"  is 
something  I  cannot  understand.  Ireland  possesses  a  far  more  ancient 
civilization  than  either  Scotland  or  England.  Her  hagiology,  her  edu- 
cational institutions,  her  old  nobility,  her  code  of  laws,  her  jurispru- 
dence, are  of  much  greater  antiquity.  "The  Irish,"  declares  Collins, 
"colonized  Scotland,  gave  to  it  a  name,  a  literature  and  a  language, 
gave  it  a  hundred  songs  and  gave  it  Christianity."  For  additional 
evidence  on  this  point  see  Knight,  Lingard,  Chambers,  Lecky,  "Vener- 
able Bede,  Buckle,  Pinkerton,  Logan,  Thebaud,  Sir  Henry  Maine  and 
other  authors. 

Mr.  Joseph  Smith,  an  Irish  Protestant  of  Lowell,  Mass.,  in  a  letter  to 
the  Pilot  in  September,  1892,  alluding  to  a  writer  who  dwells  upon  the 
"  Scotch-Irish,"  says  : — 

"I  object  as  an  Irishman  and  a  Protestant  to  having  my  race  and 
religion  misrepresented,  and  I  most  vigorously  protest  against  a 
Scotchman's  posing  as  the  mouthpiece  and  defender  of  Irish  Protes- 
tanism.  The  Irish  Protestants  need  no  defender;  they  have  always 
been  amply  able  to  take  care  of  themselves,  and  they  have  always  been 
honorably  prominent  in  the  efl'orts  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  their 
country  and  give  it  a  strong  nationality  in  which  the  question  of  relig- 
ious faith  should  be  merely  incidental  and  unimportant.  Irish  Protes- 
tants are  Irish,  and  they  never  had  and  never  needed  Scotch  aid  to  fight 
their  battles.     .     .     . 

".  .  .  My  people  have  lived  in  Ulster  for  hundreds  of  years,  but  we 
were  never  stigmatized  as  Scotch-Irish.  We  of  Ulster,  Protestant  and 
Catholic,  are  Irish,  pure  and  simple;  and  Irish  nationality,  undiluted  by 
Scotch  vinegar  or  British  water,  is  quite  good  enough  for  us.  The 
strength  of  the  movement  of  '83  was  in  Ulster ;  the  United  Irish  Society 
was  formed  in  Ulster,  and  it  was  Irish,  with  no  use  whatever  for  Scotch 
ideas  or  allies I,  as  an  Irishman  of  Ulster  blood  and  Protes- 
tant religion,  stoutly  scorn  this  man  and  his  Scotch-Irish  rubbish.  I 
am  an  Irishman,  pure  and  simple,  and  I  protest  with  vigor  against  my 
religion  being  used  to  deprive  me  of  my  nationality  by  this  self-elected 
missionary.  I  utterly  repudiate  him  and  all  his  kind,  and  array  myself 
under  the  standard  of  Grattan  and  Emmet  and  Parnell,  and  take  a  glori- 
ous pride  in  remembering  that  innumerable  movements  for  Irish  nation- 
ality against  English  misrule  has  been  captained  by  Irish  Protestants." 

Mr.  Green  inthnates  that  he  is  going  to  claim  President  Jackson  as 


57 

Irish  of  the  prefix  variety.  Surely  Mr.  Green  cannot  be  acquainted  with 
the  origin  of  the  Irish  Jacksons— the  name  coiiiinii  clown  througli  the 
centuries  from  the  old  Milesian  stock.  President  JacksoA  himself  was 
assuredly  not  afflicted  with  the  "  Scotch-Irish"  heresy.  Read  his  ad- 
dress at  Boston,  in  June,  1833,  to  the  Charitable  Irish  Society.  On  that 
occasion  President  Boyd  of  the  Society,  a  Protestant,  said,  addressing 
Jackson:  "  Irishmen  have  never  been  backward  in  giving  support  to 
the  institutions  of  this  country,  nor  in  showing  due  respect  to  the  chief 
magistrate  thereof;  but  when  the  highest  office  is  hela  by  the  sou  of  au 
Irishman,  we  must  be  allowed  to  indulge  in  some  feelings  of  pride  as 
well  as  patriotism." 

To  this  President  Jackson  responded  :  "  I  feel  much  gratified,  sir,  at 
this  testimony  of  respect  shown  me  by  the  Charitable  Irish  Society  of 
this  city.  It  is  with  great  pleasure  that  I  see  so  many  of  the  country- 
men of  my  father  assembled  on  this  occasion.  I  have  always  been  proud 
of  my  ancestry  and  of  being  descended  from  that  noble  race,  and  rejoice 
that  I  am  so  closely  allied  to  a  country  which  has  so  much  to  recommend 
it  to  the  good  wishes  of  the  world.  Would  to  God,  sir,  that  Irishmen 
on  the  other  side  of  the  great  water  enjoyed  the  comforts,  happiness  and 
liberty  they  enjoy  here.  I  am  well  aware,  sir,  that  Irishmen  have  never 
been  Ijackward  in  giving  their  support  to  the  cause  of  liberty.  They 
have  fought,  sir,  for  this  country  valiantly,  and  I  have  no  doubt  would 
fight  again  were  it  necessary,  but  I  hope  it  will  be  long  before  the  insti- 
tutions of  our  country  need  support  of  that  kind.  Accept  my  best  wishes 
for  the  happiness  of  you  all."     (See  records  of  the  Society). 

How  the  spirit  of  old  Pat  Calhoun  must  groan  when  certain  writers 
traduce  his  memory  by  holding  his  son  up  and  apart  as  "  Scotch-Irish." 
In  his  lifetime  he  surely  never  dreamt  it  would  come  to  this. 

A  few  years  since  the  Protestant  Archbishop  Plunkett  of  Ireland,  in 
addressing  some  Presbyterian  visitors,  said:  "I  hope  that  while  we 
shall  always  be  very  proud  of  our  imperial  nationality  ;  proud  of  our  con- 
nection with  the  British  empire,  on  the  history  of  which,  as  Irishmen, 
we  have  shed  some  lustre  in  the  past,  and  from  our  connection  with 
which  we  have  derived  much  advantage  in  return, — while  we  are  proud, 
I  say,  of  our  imperial  nationality,  let  us  never  be  forgetful  of  our  Irish 
nationality.  We  may  be  descended  from  different  races — the  Danes, 
Celts,  Saxons,  and  Scots — but  we  form  a  combined  stratum  of  our  own, 
and  tliat  is  Irish,  and  nothing  else." 

I  cannot  better  extend  this  communication  than  by  reproducing  an 
extract  from  my  original  reply  to  Mr.  Green,  published  in  the  Boston 
Traveller:  An  Episcopalian  friend  once  said  to  me:  "I  notice  that  so 
long  as  an  Irishman  in  this  country  goes  to  the  Roman  Catholic  church, 
he  is  spoken  of  as  Irisli;  but  should  he  change  his  creed  and  frequent 
the  Baptist  or  the  Methodist  church,  he  is  immediately  referred  to  by 
his  new  friends  as  "  Scotch-Irish."  This  is  a  fair  specimen  of  the  shaky 
ground  on  which  the  shibboleth  rests. 

Touching  upon  the  subject  of  Sarah  Alexander,  mother  of  the  hero  of 
Lake  Erie,  I  ask  Mr.  Green  if  he  would  consider  himself  any  the  less  an 
American  because  his  grandfather  happened  to  be  English  or  Irish  or 
Scotch?  He  avoids  a  direct  answer  to  this,  and  good-naturedly  brushes 
the  question  aside.     So  I  must  repeat  it. 

Mr.  Green  facetiously  remarks  that  he  might  be  able  to  establish  a 
few  Scottish  ancestors  for  myself.  I  think  not.  The  Murrays  (Irish, 
O'Muiredhaigh)  are  in  origin  Irish  of  the  Irish.  They  trace  descent 
back  many  centuries  and  at  different  periods  have  been  dynasts  in  Cork, 
Meath,  Derry,  Mayo  and  other  districts.  They  are  kin  to  the 
O'Mahoneys,  McCarthys  and  other  historic  Irish  septs.  So  you  see, 
Mr.  Green,  how  hopeless  your  task  would  be. 


58 

Speaking  of  the  name  borne  by  my  correspondent,  I  have  known 
sturdy,  full-blooded  Irishmen,  right  from  Cork  and  Galway,  who  were 
named  both  Green  and  Greene.  Did  time  allow,  perhaps  I  could  trace 
Irish  descent  on  the  part  of  the  distinguished  librarian.  I  am  sure  he 
would  be  pleased  to  have  me  do  so. 

As  I  stated  in  a  former  letter,  this  "Scotch-Irish"  fad  has,  in  very 
truth,  become  an  unutterable  bore.  While  some  Irish  people  of  imme- 
diate or  remote  Scottish  descent  did  unquestionably  come  to  these 
shores,  not  five  per  cent,  qf  those  claimed  as  such  by  current  writers 
were  really  of  Scotch  extraction.  And  these  were  so  hopelessly  over- 
whelmed in  numbers  by  other  Irish  who  came  that  any  attempt  to  claim 
exclusive  merit  for  the  handful  can  only  result  in  mortification  to  the 
claimant. 

The  part  the  Irish — the  "mere  Irish" — took  in  our  revolutionary 
war  is  safely  recorded  in  American  history.  "You  have  lost  America' 
by  the  Irish!"  exclaimed  Lord  Mouutjoy  (1783)  in  the  British  parlia- 
ment. Loyalist  Galloway  when  questioned  in  the  Commons  as  to  the 
composition  of  our  patriot  army,  replied:  "I  can  answer  the  question 
with  precision.  They  were  scarcely  one-fourth  natives  of  America, 
about  one-half  Irish,  the  other  fourth  English  and  Scotch."  Ramsey 
declares  "  the  Irish  in  America  were  almost  to  a  man  on  the  side  of 
independence,"  and  Plovvden  says  that  many  of  the  successes  of  the 
patriots  "  were  immediately  owing  to  the  vigorous  exertions  and  prow- 
ess of  the  Irish  emigrants  who  bore  arms  in  that  cause." 

The  precious  "  Scotch-Irish  "  of  modern  times  had  not  yet  eventuated, 
it  would  appear.  I  cannot  close  this  letter  more  appropriately  than  by 
quoting  the  tribute  of  Washington's  adopted  son,  G.  W.  P.  Custis,  who 
thus  speaks  of  the  plain,  every  day  Irish  :-  - 

"Then  honored  be  the  old  and  good  services  of  the  sons  of  Erin  in 
the  war  of  independence.  Let  the  shamrock  be  entwined  with  the 
laurels  of  the  revolution,  and  truth  and  justice  guiding  the  pen  of 
history  inscribe  on  the  tablets  of  America's  remembrance,  eternal 
gratitude  to  Irishmen." 

Thomas  Hamilton  Murray. 

Lawrence,  Mass.,  July  6,  1895. 

The  correspondence  closed  with  the  following  letter  from  Mr.  Green 
in  The  Worcester  Daily  Telegram  of  July  9,  1895 : 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Telegram  :— 

Mr.  Murray  in  his  rejoinder,  this  morning,  to  my  reply  to  his  recent 
communication,  says  that  after  a  certain  statement  which  I  had  made 
in  the  reply,  which  he  quotes,  and,  in  his  use  of  our  language,  calls  an 
"  admission,"  "  very  little  remains  to  be  said." 

He  will  therefore  excuse  me  if,  with  a  great  deal  of  work  crowding 
on  me,  I  answer  his  last  letter  briefly,  and,  without  agreeing  with  or 
disputing  the  assertions  made  by  him  regarding  the  general  subject  of 
what  he  would  call  the  Scotch-Irish  myth,  merely  reply  to  a  question  to 
which  h.e  says  I  avoided  "  a  direct  answer,"  and  write  a  few  words  in 
defence  of  Hon.  Leonard  A.  Morrison. 

Mr.  Murray  writes:  "I  ask  Mr.  Green  if  he  would  consider  himself 
any  the  less  an  American  because  his  grandfather  happened  to  be  English 
or  Irish  or  Scotch." 

I  had  supposed  that  I  had  made  my  answer  clear,  but,  as  I  do  not 
seem  to  have  been  understood,  I  state  distinctly  that,  under  the  circum- 
stances mentioned,  I  should  not  consider  myself  any  the  less  an 
American. 

I  will  add  that,  under  the  same  circumstances,  I  should  feel  at  perfect 
liberty,  did  I  so  choose,   to  call  myself  an  English-American,  Irish- 


59 

American  or  a  Scotch- American,  and  that  I  do  not  believe  I  should 
resent  it  if  my  friends  and  acquaintances  spoke  of  me  in  that  way.  It 
is  natural  and  pleasant  for  many  Americans  to  have  the  love  which  they 
bear  the  lands  of  their  birth  or  of  their  ancestors  recognized  by  an 
appropriate  adjective  before  the  name  of  the  beloved  country  to  which 
they  now  belong. 

Mr.  Murray  seems  to  think  that  Mr.  Morrison  and  all  other  persons 
■who  choose  to  be  known  as  Scotch-Irish  are  ashamed  of  the  name 
Irish. 

Is  that  true  ?     I  am  sure  it  is  not. 

If  they  wish  to  avoid  being  known  as  Irishmen,  why  do  they  not  call 
themselves  Scotchmen?  Many  of  them  I  am  sure,  feel  that  while  they 
retained  the  characteristics  of  Scotchmen,  while  living  in  Ireland,  they 
also  gained  much  by  coming  in  contact  with  the  people  of  Ireland. 

Mr.  Morrison  is  a  student  of  the  history  of  the  North  of  Ireland,  and 
is  very  proud  of  being  descended  from  ancestors  who  lived  there.  He 
knows,  of  course,  as  do  Mr.  Linehan  and  I,  that,  according  to  the  old 
traditions,  emigrants  from  Ireland  settled  Scotland  and  gave  it  its 
name.  But  he  believes,  and  I  believe,  that  the  mixture  of  races,  as  they 
were  to  be  found  in  the  lowlands  of  Scotland,  frpm  which  the  large 
colonies  went  into  Ireland  in  the  17th  century,  was  very  different  from 
the  mixture  of  races  to  be  found  among  the  Irish  of  the  same  period. 
Mr.  Linehan  would  probably  deny  this  statement,  but  I  think  that  peo- 
ple generally  who  have  read  of  Scotchmen  and  Irishmen,  or  who  have 
come  in  contact  with  them,  believe  that  the  two  races  differed  widely 
during  the  century  under  consideration,  and  that  the  differences  in  race 
characteristics  which  showed  themselves  then  are  very  obvious  now. 

Samuel  Swett  Green. 

l2  Harvard  street,  July  8,  1895. 


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